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Flash to bang is an artillery term for visually seeing a flash and then as the sound travels you can assess how far away the explosion is by the speed of sound. Also useful for seeing lightning and then determining how far away it is by counting, One-one thousand, two-onr thousand... each is a kilometer away. by the speed of sound so her use of the term is absolutely garbage she heard and is making up a use case to sound smart or it is direct misinformation to tag ignorance.

Two new programmes to accelerate the adoption of 15-minute city (15MC)/proximity planning policies and measure their impact

C40, a network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities, is increasing actions to accelerate the adoption of the 15-minute City (15MC) - highly liveable, walkable, and people-oriented cities. The Green and Thriving Neighborhoods programme created in collaboration with Urban Partners provides deep support to more than 40 cities to help them turn the 15MC into reality through the implementation of concrete pilot projects. C40 also launched a tool to measure the impacts of 15MC with Novo Nordisk. The Healthy Neighborhoods Explorer, created with Novo Nordisk’s Cities will enable policymakers to measure how 15MCs significantly reduce emissions and offer residents better health.

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With rapid population growth and urbanisation, cities around the world are battlegrounds for our fight against climate change. The latest IPCC report highlights that integrated urban planning can reduce emissions by 23-26% by 2050. Sprawl and congestion must be transformed into density and connectivity; pollution must be restored to clean air; and car-dominated roads and highways must give way to people-centric streets and nature-friendly neighbourhoods. Emerging models like the “15-minute” city focus on urban proximity and quality of life, and represent a turning point, envisioning a future where cities are built in harmony with nature and people. This session convenes city leaders, pioneering thinkers and urban innovators that are turning this vision into reality.

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The Civil War grew out of longstanding tensions and disagreements about American life and politics. For more than 80 years, people in the Northern and Southern states had been debating the issues that ultimately led to war: economic policies and practices, cultural values, the extent and reach of the Federal government, and, most importantly, the role of slavery within American society.

Against the backdrop of these larger issues, individual soldiers had their own reasons for fighting. Their motivations often included a complex mix of personal, social, economic and political values that didn't necessarily match the aims expressed by their respective governments.

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We’re looking forward to being back at the SDG Tent in snowcapped Davos in just one month! The 54th World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting will reconvene under the theme of Rebuilding Trust, from 15-19 January 2024.

Over the course of 2023, the issue of trust has become increasingly prevalent. A year ago, WEF explored the notion of resilience amidst polycrisis, since then new geopolitical fractures have overshadowed existing ones, and the cost-of-living crisis continues to rise while global food and energy security becomes more precarious.

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The AI processing unit

While typically GPUs are better than CPUs when it comes to AI processing, they’re not perfect. The industry needs specialised processors to enable efficient processing of AI applications, modelling and inference. As a result, chip designers are now working to create processing units optimized for executing these algorithms. These come under many names, such as NPU, TPU, DPU, SPU etc., but a catchall term can be the AI processing unit (AI PU).

The AI PU was created to execute machine learning algorithms, typically by operating on predictive models such as artificial neural networks. They are usually classified as either training or inference as these processes are generally performed independently.

Some applications we already see in the real world:

Monitoring a system or area from threats like a security system involving real time facial recognition (IP cams, door cameras, etc.)

Chatbots for retail or businesses that interact with customers

Natural language processing for voice assistants

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5. Policymakers Maintain Momentum on AI, Even If Public Interest Dips

While there is currently plenty of hype around artificial intelligence (AI), next year it is reasonable to expect that some predictions will not come true and some of the rhetoric may look overblown. Over the longer term, however, we are likely to understand that this apparent lull was simply our experience of the early stages of the technology’s exponential upward curve. Big changes are coming, even if they are not evident right now. So policymakers should keep working on the deployment and regulation of AI, and in particular act fast to ensure access to the compute capacity their country needs to compete.

6. Public Services Start to Serve the People

Countries are experimenting in different ways with applying technology to public services to make them more user-friendly, responsive and efficient. But genuinely transformative progress relies on connecting the many silos of information to deliver proactive support to the people who need it, reducing waste while maximising service value. This requires a common infrastructure and identity system, and considerable design work. Many policymakers already recognise that the technology to enable transformation exists; now what is needed is the policy commitment.

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Remember how I told you to expect some amicus briefs? Well, the amici did not disappoint. Nine briefs were filed on Friday by a combined 19 organizations. Seven were filed neutrally (“in support of neither party”), but two were filed on behalf of the government (“in support of Petitioners”). I expect many more to be filed in February, right after the plaintiffs file their answering brief.

As I mentioned before, these briefs are usually the most interesting since they contain new viewpoints. For what it’s worth, I humbly offer my abbreviated take on the briefs:

Hi Adam and John,

In the lastest show, you identified a group called the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) correctly as a spook-connected think tank. I have been researching the group since then. I'll spare you a long writeup and simply share an article I found from 2019 that hits all the high points:

https://thegreatworkdecoded.com/knowledge-base/institute-for-strategic-dialogue/

Major Points:

Partnership with Google Innovation Fund in 2017

Other partnerships with Microsoft, Twitter, governments, etc etc

Assortment of MI5 and MI6 operatives on the board

Funding multiplied in 2019 - https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/271282489

Money appears to come from staunch pro-Israel donors who sit on the BOD

I also found they use some sleazy law firm in Toledo for their US operations, which seems really odd.

And finally, I will finish by saying that the "Founding CEO" Sasha Havlicek appears to be just a figurehead (i.e. a spokesmodel for hire).

And to think there are thousands of operations like this!

Best,

Sir Dave

Disney will still have ways to protect Mickey Mouse after Jan. 1. The company will retain copyrights in the character’s more modern versions for a few more years. And it has said that it will continue to defend its trademarks, which could limit what creators are able to do.

“This is very different than Winnie the Pooh,” said Justin Hughes, a professor who specializes in intellectual property at Loyola Law School. “When Winnie the Pooh fell into the public domain, you could have ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.'”

He argued there is less leeway with Mickey Mouse because it is such a strong trademark. In 2007, Walt Disney Animation Studios adapted a clip from “Steamboat Willie” as its logo, strengthening its claim to the earliest version of Mickey.

“There will be some legitimate public domain uses,” Hughes said. “But people will have to be very careful that they don’t trigger a legitimate trademark claim by Disney.”

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Going into 2024, podcasting executives remain incredibly bullish on growth in the sector, with an eye to creating multiple revenue streams for creators and using artificial intelligence and video to expand the audience.

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Thu, 28 Dec 2023 17:25

Name for Earth or North America used by Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States

Satellite image of Turtle IslandTurtle Island is a name for Earth or North America, used by some Indigenous peoples, as well as by some Indigenous rights activists. The name is based on a creation story common to several Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of North America.

A number of contemporary works continue to use and/or tell the Turtle Island creation story.

Lenape [ edit ] The Lenape story of the "Great Turtle" was first recorded by Europeans between 1678 and 1680 by Jasper Danckaerts. The story is shared by other Northeastern Woodlands tribes, notably the Iroquois peoples.[4]

The Lenape believe that before creation there was nothing, an empty dark space. However, in this emptiness, there existed a spirit of their creator, Kishelam knk. Eventually in that emptiness, he fell asleep. While he slept, he dreamt of the world as we know it today, the Earth with mountains, forests, and animals. He also dreamt up man, and he saw the ceremonies man would perform. Then he woke up from his dream to the same nothingness he was living in before. Kishelam knk then started to create the Earth as he had dreamt it.

First, he created helper spirits, the Grandfathers of the North, East, and West, and the Grandmother of the South. Together, they created the Earth just as Kishelam knk had dreamt it. One of their final acts was creating a special tree. From the roots of this tree came the first man, and when the tree bent down and kissed the ground, woman sprang from it.

All the animals and humans did their jobs on the Earth, until eventually a problem arose. There was a tooth of a giant bear that could give the owner magical powers, and the humans started to fight over it. Eventually, the wars got so bad that people moved away, and made new tribes and new languages. Kishelam knk saw this fighting and decided to send down a spirit, Nanapush, to bring everyone back together. He went on top of a mountain and started the first Sacred Fire, which gave off a smoke that caused all the people of the world to come investigate what it was. When they all came, Nanapush created a pipe with a sumac branch and a soapstone bowl, and the creator gave him Tobacco to smoke with. Nanapush then told the people that whenever they fought with each other, to sit down and smoke tobacco in the pipe, and they would make decisions that were good for everyone.

The same bear tooth later caused a fight between two evil spirits, a giant toad and an evil snake. The toad was in charge of all the waters, and amidst the fighting he ate the tooth and the snake. The snake then proceeded to bite his side, releasing a great flood upon the Earth. Nanapush saw this destruction and began climbing a mountain to avoid the flood, all the while grabbing animals that he saw and sticking them in his sash. At the top of the mountain there was a cedar tree that he started to climb, and as he climbed he broke off limbs of the tree. When he got to the top of the tree, he pulled out his bow, played it and sang a song that made the waters stop. Nanapush then asked which animal he could put the rest of the animals on top of in the water. The turtle volunteered saying he'd float and they could all stay on him, and that's why they call the land turtle island.

Nanapush then decided the turtle needed to be bigger for everyone to live on, so he asked the animals if one of them would dive down into the water to get some of the old Earth. The beaver tried first, but came up dead and Nanapush had to revive him. The loon tried second, but its attempt ended with the same fate. Lastly, the muskrat tried. He stayed down the longest, and came up dead as well, but he had some Earth on his nose that Nanapush put on the Turtles back. Because of his accomplishment, Nanapush told the muskrat he was blessed and his kind would always thrive in the land.

Nanapush then took out his bow and again sang, and the turtle started to grow. It kept growing, and Nanapush sent out animals to try to get to the edge to see how long it had grown. First, he sent the bear, and the bear returned in two days saying he had reached the end. Next, he sent out the deer, who came back in two weeks saying he had reached the end. Finally, he sent the wolf, and the wolf never returned because the land had gotten so big. The Lenape claim that this is why the wolf howls, that it is really a call for their ancestor to come back home. [5]

Haudenosaunee [ edit ] Sky Woman (1936), by Seneca artist Ernest Smith, depicts the story of Turtle Island.According to the oral tradition of the Haudenosaunee (or "Iroquois"), "the earth was the thought of [a ruler] of a great island which floats in space [and] is a place of eternal peace." Sky Woman fell down to the earth when it was covered with water, or more specifically, when there was a "great cloud sea". Various animals tried to swim to the bottom of the ocean to bring back dirt to create land. Muskrat succeeded in gathering dirt, which was placed on the back of a turtle. This dirt began to multiply and also caused the turtle to grow bigger. The turtle continued to grow bigger and bigger and the dirt continued to multiply until it became a huge expanse of land.[8] Thus, when Iroquois cultures refer to the earth, they often call it Turtle Island.[8]

According to Converse and Parker, the Iroquois faith shared with other religions the "belief that the Earth is supported by a gigantic turtle." In the Seneca language, the mythical turtle is called Hah-nu-nah, while the name for an everyday turtle is ha-no-wa.

In other versions of the story, such as Susan M. Hills's, the muskrat or other animals die in their search for land for the Sky Woman (named Mature Flower in Hills's telling). This is a representation of the Haudenosaunee beliefs of death and chaos as forces of creation, as we all give our bodies to the land to become soil, which in turn continues to support life. This concept plays out again when the Mature Flower's daughter dies during childbirth, becoming the first person to be buried on the turtle's back and whose burial post helped grow various plants such as corn and strawberries. This, according to Hill, also shows how soil, and the land itself, has the ability to act and shape creation. Some tellings do not include this expanded edition as part of the Creation Story, however, these differences are important to note when considering Haudenosaunee traditions and relationships.

Indigenous rights activism and environmentalism [ edit ] The name Turtle Island has been used by many Indigenous cultures in North America, and both native and non-native activists, especially since the 1970s when the term came into wider usage. American author and ecologist Gary Snyder uses the term to refer to North America, writing that it synthesizes both indigenous and colonizer cultures, by translating the indigenous name into the colonizer's languages (the Spanish "Isla Tortuga" being proposed as a name as well). Snyder argues that understanding North America under the name of Turtle Island will help shift conceptions of the continent. Turtle Island has been used by writers and musicians, including Snyder for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poetry, Turtle Island; the Turtle Island Quartet jazz string quartet; Tofurky manufacturer Turtle Island Foods; and the Turtle Island Research Cooperative in Boise, Idaho.[12][13]

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has put into practice the acknowledgment of indigenous territory and claims, particularly at institutions located within unceded land or covered by perpetual decrees such as the Haldimand Tract. At Canadian universities, many courses, student and academic meetings, as well as convocation and other celebrations begin with a spoken acknowledgement of the traditional Indigenous territories, sometimes including reference to Turtle Island, in which they are taking place.[14]

Names in Indigenous American languages [ edit ] Anishinaabemowin: Mishiike Minisi, Mikinoc Waajew[15][dubious '' discuss ]Kanyenʼk(C)ha: Anowara:kowa[15][dubious '' discuss ]Lakota: Kh(C)ya W­taTuscarora: Ragwis YuwenaContemporary works [ edit ] There are a number of contemporary works which continue to use and/or tell the story of the Turtle Island creation story.

The Truth About Stories by Thomas King [ edit ] Thomas King's book tells us that "the truth about stories is they're all we are." King's book explores the power of story both in native lives and in the lives of every person on this planet. Every chapter opens with a telling of the story of the world on the back of a turtle in space, and in each chapter, it is slightly altered to show how stories change through tellers and audiences. Their fluidity is itself a characteristic of the story as they traverse through time.

King provides us with his own telling of the story using a woman named Charm as his Sky Woman. Charm is from a different planet and is described as being curious to a fault, often asking the animals of her planet questions they deem to be too nosy. When she becomes pregnant she develops a craving for Red Fern Root, which can only be found underneath the oldest tree. While digging for the Red Fern Root she digs so deep she makes a hole in the planet, and in her curiosity falls through all the way to earth. King tells us that this is a young Earth from before land was created, and in order to save Charm from falling hard and fast into the water and upsetting the stillness of the water, all the water birds fly up to catch her. With no land to set her on they offer her the back of the turtle. When Charm is almost ready to give birth the animals fear that the turtle will be too crowded, so she asks the animals to dive down to find mud so that she can use its magic to build dry land. Many animals try but most fail, until the otter dives down for days before finally surfacing, passed out from exhaustion, clutching mud in their paws. Charm creates land from the mud, magic, and the turtle's back and gives birth to twins which keep the earth in balance. One twin flattened out the land, created light, and created woman, while the other made valleys and mountains, shadows, and man.

King emphasizes that the Turtle Island creation story creates "a world in which creation is a shared activity...a world that begins in chaos and moves toward harmony." He explains that understanding and continuing to tell this story creates a world that values these ideas and relationships with nature. Without that understanding, we fail to uphold the relationships forged by Charm, the twins, and the animals that created the earth.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [ edit ] Robin Wall Kimmerer's book addresses the need for us to understand our reciprocal relationships with nature in order for us to understand and use ecology as a means to save the earth. The version of the story from Kimmerer starts off with the Sky Woman falling from a hole in the sky, cradling something tightly in her hands. Geese rise up to soften her landing and place her on the back of a turtle so that she does not drown. All the animals congregate to help find dirt for the sky woman so that she can build her habitat, some giving their lives in the search. Finally the muskrat surfaces, dead but clutching a handful of soil for the Sky Woman, who takes the offering gratefully and uses seeds from The Tree of Life to begin her garden using her gratitude and the gifts from the animals, thus creating Turtle Island as we know it. Through the Sky Woman story, Kimmerer tells us that we can not "begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like."

Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars' Club by Christopher B. Teuton [ edit ] Christopher B. Teuton book provides a comprehensive look into Cherokee oral traditions and art to bring them into the contemporary moment. He put together his collection with three friends, also master storytellers, who get together to swap stories from around the 14 Cherokee states. The first chapter of the book Beginnings starts with a telling of the Sky Woman story. Notably, this telling of Turtle Island has the water beetle dive for the earth necessary for the sky woman, where often you will see a muskrat or otter. Turtle Island is a running theme throughout the book, as it is the beginning of life and story.

We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom [ edit ] We Are Water Protectors is a children's storybook written by Carole Lindstrom in 2020 in response to the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline, represented as a large black snake in the book. The book says that water is the source of all life, and it is all of ours duty to protect our water sources so that we can preserve not only ourselves but those of animals and the environment. The story draws important meanings from the Turtle Island creation story such as water as the origin of life and closes with a drawing of the main character returning the turtle to the water saying "We are stewards of the earth. Our spirits are not to be broken."

See also [ edit ] Turtles in North American Indigenous MythologyAspidocheloneAbya Yala '' a name used by the Guna people and others to refer to the American continentAnahuac '' Nahuatl name for the historical and cultural region of MexicoAotearoa '' the Māori name for New ZealandAztln '' the legendary ancestral home of the Aztec peoplesCemanahuac '' Nahuatl name used by the Mexica to refer to the larger region beyond their empire, between the Pacific and Atlantic OceanGeographical renaming '' the practice of political renamingTurtle Island (Lake Erie)World TurtleZipacna '' the Mayan demonic (crocodilian) personification of the earth's crustReferences [ edit ] Specific ^ Miller, Jay. (June 1974) Why the World is on the Back of a Turtle Man, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, New Series, Vol. 9, No. 2 pp. 306''308, (including further references within the cited text) ^ Weiner, Zack; Ershadi, Julie. "Creation Story" (PDF) . lenapenation.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016 . Retrieved 16 December 2015 . ^ a b Porter, Forrester & Ka-Hon-Hes 2008, pp. 52''53. ^ n/a, n/a. "Turtle Island Research Cooperative". Turtle Island Cooperative Farm & Research Center. Archived from the original on 2018-01-22 . Retrieved 2018-01-21 . ^ Rasmussen, B. (2017-01-23). "A Return to Roots: New Boise Nonprofit pursues cultivation of earth and mind". turtleislandfrcenter. Archived from the original on 2018-01-22 . Retrieved 2018-01-21 . ^ Canadian Association of University Teachers. "CAUT Guide to Acknowledging Traditional Territory" (PDF) . Retrieved 19 April 2017 . ^ a b "North America". TCTSY - Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga . Retrieved 22 July 2021 . BibliographyBarnhill, David Landis, ed. (1999). At Home on the Earth: Becoming Native to Our Place: A Multicultural Anthology. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. xiv, 297''306, 327. ISBN 9780520216846. Converse, Harriet Maxwell; Parker, Arthur Caswell (1906). Myth and Legends of the New York State Iroquois. Albany, New York: New York State Museum. Hills, Susan M. (2017). The Clay We Are Made Of: Haudenosaunee Land Tenure on the Grand River. Winnipeg. Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press. pp. 16''25. ISBN 978-0-88755-717-0. Johansen, Bruce Elliott; Mann, Barbara Alice, eds. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-1-4294-7618-8. OCLC 154239396. Jones, Guy W.; Moomaw, Sally (October 2, 2002). Lessons from Turtle Island: Native Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms (Paperback, Ebook). St. Paul, Minnesota: Redleaf Press. ISBN 9781929610259. Kimmerer, Robin (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions. ISBN 9781571313560. King, Thomas (2008). The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 12''25. ISBN 9780816646272. Lindstrom, Carole; Goade, Michaela (2020). We are Water Protectors. New York: Roaring Brooks Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing. ISBN 9781250203557. Porter, Tom; Forrester, Lesley; Ka-Hon-Hes (2008). And Grandma Said...: Iroquois Teachings, As Passed Down Through the Oral Tradition . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Xlibris Corp. pp. 52''53. ISBN 9781436335652. Robinson, Amanda; Filice, Michelle (November 6, 2018). "Turtle Island". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historic Canada . Retrieved February 6, 2022 . For some Indigenous peoples, Turtle Island refers to the continent of North America. The name comes from various Indigenous oral histories that tell stories of a turtle that holds the world on its back. For some Indigenous peoples, the turtle is therefore considered an icon of life, and the story of Turtle Island consequently speaks to various spiritual and cultural beliefs. Teuton, Christopher B (August 2016). Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars' Club (Paperback, Ebook). Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3749-8. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) External links [ edit ] Robinson, Amanda; Filice, Michelle. "Turtle Island". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historic Canada . Retrieved February 6, 2022 .

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Thu, 28 Dec 2023 17:12

The buzzy new drug Ozempic was designed in a lab to treat diabetes, but sometimes it seems like it was also designed in a lab to spark bad-faith corporate conversations about body positivity. Ozempic and its generic name, semaglutide, are such provocations: After years of brands selling feel-good taglines about how all bodies are beautiful, the arrival on the scene of apparently effective weight loss drugs is calling a lot of bluffs. Breathless headlines report that, once again, thin is in. Our cultural ambivalence toward a politics of body acceptance has been thrown into sharp relief.

''We've paid lip service to body acceptance, we've go-girl-ed larger women, we've celebrated curves, we've recognized the gargantuan societal factors in how people look, we quote-unquote did the work,'' observed Vogue in March. ''But now with Ozempic, being overweight can instantly (if expensively) be fixed. Larger people can swiftly transition to a more societally acceptable size. Ozempic is a miracle drug, a cure for the fatness we've begrudgingly forced ourselves to accept.''

I've come to think that we can see the same political ambivalence playing out in one of the other biggest conversation starters of this year: Barbie, the hot pink feminist movie/doll commercial.

''Things can be both/and. I'm doing the thing and subverting the thing,'' director Greta Gerwig told the New York Times. Was such subversion really possible when it comes to Barbie and feminism? Was it possible when Mattel was, after all, funding Gerwig's supposedly subversive picture in order to sell a lot of dolls and accompanying merch? That was the sticking point, the selling, how much the movie was an exquisitely made, lovingly ambivalent and tender commercial for Barbie and all that she stands for.

''So, what are those bevies of pink-bedecked filmgoing females supposed to make of all this?'' asked the Guardian, rhetorically, in a pan of Barbie. ''They will see seductive but dubious stereotypes embellished rather than subverted. Muddled messaging may dispel rather than stimulate any impulse to crusade. '... A clear call to action does in the end emerge: go forth and buy the products of the film's sponsor, Mattel, and its galaxy of commercial partners.''

Barbie was a movie about how everyone was beautiful and Barbie herself owed us all an apology for ever making us think otherwise. At the same time, it was being used to sell so much. How could we reconcile those two ideas?

The conversations about Barbie and Ozempic are mirror images of each other. They are about what happens when a moment that is ostensibly about teaching women to love their bodies bumps up against the enormous amount of money there is to be made by selling women stuff that teaches them to hate their bodies. They are testaments to the failures of the past decade of mainstream neoliberal feminism.

''I'm not Stereotypical Barbie pretty.''In early commercials for the doll, Barbie was always ''Barbie, beautiful Barbie.'' Yet Barbie the movie has a vexed relationship with Barbie's beauty. Barbie's beauty is, within the realm of this movie, a political force, a power, a weapon. Like all weapons, it has dark sides.

''I'm not pretty anymore. '... I'm not Stereotypical Barbie pretty,'' Barbie weeps at one point in the film. Dryly, the narrator cuts in: ''Note to the filmmakers: Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point.''

Robbie's Barbie is pointedly named Stereotypical Barbie because she so embodies the beauty standard Barbie is beloved and vilified for: big blonde hair, tanned European skin and perky European features, blue eyes, impossibly tall and impossibly buxom. Since Barbie's origin in the 1950s, Mattel has added new dolls to the line with different skin tones and hair textures and body types, but Stereotypical Barbie is the one we're generally talking about when we say Barbie.

Robbie, even while lamenting that she isn't pretty, comes closer to embodying the Stereotypical Barbie ideal than most human beings can. Yet even Robbie's Barbie isn't completely faithful. That's because Barbie's proportions are not human: A proportional human-size Barbie would not be able to walk upright or support her head on her neck. This fact, Gerwig told the New York Times, ''always stuck with me,'' but it doesn't make an appearance in Gerwig's film.

Instead, Barbie enjoys celebrating Barbie's beauty. The camera pans luxuriously over her gleaming blonde hair, her brilliant smile, her kicky wardrobe. Watching the movie, we like her, and we like her because she is beautiful. The part of a Barbie doll's beauty that is grotesque, that is physically impossible, has been neatly excised from the record.

Yet Barbie the movie is also aware that Barbie's particular brand of beauty is, let us say, politically problematic.

''You represent everything wrong with our culture,'' a Gen Z cynic tells Barbie. ''Sexualized capitalism, unrealistic physical ideals.'' Then she calls Barbie a fascist, and the camera closes in on Barbie's shocked, weeping face.

Barbie's beauty is also, crucially, a vulnerability. When Barbie leaves Barbieland for the real world, she finds herself objectified by men for the first time, and her implausibly perfect beauty only accentuates and amplifies that objectification. It ''very much has an undertone of violence,'' Barbie realizes with mounting horror.

Gerwig sees Barbie's plastic and objectifiable beauty as one half of a binary. On the other side is the beauty of Barbie's humanity, which she realizes after Gloria '-- the human woman who plays with her '-- makes the connection for her. ''It is literally impossible to be a woman,'' Gloria says. ''You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough.''

That moment is the twin to the scene that lies at the heart of the film, when Barbie, in the midst of an existential crisis in the real world, sees an old woman waiting at a bus stop. ''You're beautiful,'' Barbie tells the woman. ''I know it,'' the woman replies.

These two moments are the utopian vision of Barbie, the redemption of all the harm her beauty caused us and the repudiation of all the harm her beauty makes her vulnerable to. Beauty in its truest form in this movie is the strength and humanity of individual women, and we affirm life when we are able to recognize that humanity in one another, in everyone from Margot Robbie to old ladies catching the bus. Beauty only becomes sinister, here, when it is used by men to exploit little girls.

If that's the message of Barbie as a work of art, it becomes harder to square with the message of Barbie as a commercial property meant to sell dolls and their merch. Mattel used Barbie as an opportunity to score over 100 licensing deals, including many, many skin care and makeup products that exist to teach women to correct all the so-called physical flaws that Barbie doesn't have.

Writes beauty critic Jessica DeFino:

Barbie profits from both the feel-good performance of embracing cellulite and wrinkles and the practical tools of erasing them. '... Accept your imperfections! it yells in its make-believe world. Now reject them! it counters in the real one. Meditate on death! the production proposes. Obliterate all superficial signs of mortality! its products argue. It doesn't make sense and it doesn't have to '-- in the hands of Barbie's marketing department, viewers are but Barbie dolls, products being smashed into products.

Off-brand, there's Barbie Botox, a trend Mattel hasn't licensed and isn't profiting from but is sold in Barbie's name nonetheless. It's a procedure where you inject your trapezius muscle with Botox to slim and elongate the neck, recreating the anatomically impossible Barbie neck that so haunted Gerwig. It took off as a trend on TikTok in August, shortly after the movie came out, and currently the hashtag has 17.5 million views.

If Barbie the movie wants you to embrace the old woman at the bus stop, lots of women watched it and came away with the desire to inject Botox into their shoulders until their muscles shrank away; to bleach and wax and tone until they, too, were Stereotypical Barbie.

The Kardashians, never ones to miss a body modification trend, are right there with the rest of the Barbiecore.

''Kim dropped twenty-one pounds before the Met Gala, where she wore a dress made famous by Marilyn Monroe,'' reported the New Yorker in March. ''Khlo(C), who has spoken in the past about struggling with her weight, posted fortieth-birthday photos in which she looked as slim and blond as a Barbie.''

Which brings us to the Ozempic in the room.

''You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.'' Ozempic is one of the brand names for the drug semaglutide, which was approved as a diabetes drug in the US in 2017. Semaglutide is said to be remarkably effective as a diabetes treatment, but it became famous for one of its side effects: It is very, very good at making people lose weight. Hollywood, ostensibly an industry that now embraces the human body in all its many sizes and complexities, sat up and took notice.

Last September, Variety reported that Ozempic has ''saturated the industry'' of show business. Movie glamour still has its cachet. ''The buy-in of Hollywood,'' said New York magazine in February, ''took Ozempic from medicine to status symbol.'' Now, semaglutide has been approved for use as a weight loss drug under the brand name Wegovy, although it is generally not covered by insurance.

Popular culture has answered Ozempic's presence with exquisite responsiveness. Plus-size models vanished from the runways. ''Bye-bye booty: Heroin chic is back,'' announced the New York Post.

The famously curvy Kardashians have shrunk. Adele lost weight. Mindy Kaling lost weight. None of them admitted to using weight loss drugs, with the coyness characteristic of our current Ozempic moment: It's important right now that women should get skinny, but they should get skinny the right way. (''I've tried really hard to let go of this idea of losing weight for vanity reasons and really trying to think of how I can be healthy,'' Kaling told People of her weight loss.) If a famous woman admits to using an injection to be thin, her thinness is no longer aspirational.

That's part of the Ozempic effect. Now that it is theoretically possible for anyone who can afford the out-of-pocket costs to get skinny, all the invisible contradictions of our culture's body politics are suddenly, blindingly clear: To have a good body, our culture tells us, is to have a thin body. There are bad ways and good ways of getting a thin body. Is there any good way to have a fat body?

Just 18 months ago, these ideas were not quite as visible in mainstream discourse as they are now.

''There was just this era '-- I want to say, like, 2017 to 2020 '-- where it was seen as gauche to be, like, I'm on a diet,'' observed science writer Olga Khazan on the podcast Radio Atlantic in September. ''People stopped dieting. You know, the CEO of Weight Watchers around that time was like, Healthy is the new skinny.''

Healthy was, of course, a euphemism for skinny, but the right kind of skinny. Skinny at the waist, thicker at the butt and breast. That was the look women were supposed to aim for, and it was ostensibly an upgrade from the heroin chic ideal of the 1990s, a sign of how far our culture had progressed. Whatever ideal a woman was aiming for, she couldn't, as Gerwig notes in Barbie, say so.

''You have to be thin but not too thin, and you can never say you want to be thin,'' Gerwig's Gloria says. ''You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.''

Now, Khazan reported on Radio Atlantic, you can just say you want to be thin. And while Khazan argued it was important to maintain the gains of the body positivity movement and not ''shame people who are obese or make them feel fat or lazy or somehow 'less than,' just because they're obese,'' she also noted that Ozempic put a new asterisk next to their size.

''I do think that this era of semaglutide puts a new focus on the fact that if you're, you know, severely overweight or obese, there is something you can do about that,'' Khazan mused.

There are any number of reasons a person might choose not to go on Ozempic. Right now, it's not covered by insurers for weight loss, and the out-of-pocket costs are expensive. It is currently in such high demand for weight loss that people who need it to treat their diabetes are having trouble accessing it. Taking it messes with digestive health, and the accompanying side effects can be severe. Some people lose so much of their appetite on Ozempic they experience malnutrition. Plus, if you go off the drug, the weight you lost will come back. That means if you want the weight to stay off, you have to stay on this drug for your whole life, and since it's a new medication, we don't know what its long-term use really looks like or what health risks come with it.

All the same, if there is ''something you can do about'' your weight, choosing to not do something about your weight, for whatever the reason, becomes something our culture will look at askance. People understand this shift instinctively, especially fat people.

On NPR, general practitioner Mara Gordon talked about a patient who begged her for an Ozempic prescription, weeping. The patient was overweight according to the BMI chart, but she was still metabolically healthy. The patient ''had tried for years to make peace with her bigger body, but said she was sick of fighting for body acceptance,'' Gordon writes. ''Even though her blood pressure and blood sugar levels were well-controlled, she was ground down by the fatphobia she experienced every day. She wanted Ozempic.''

Talking to Jia Tolentino in the New Yorker, plastic surgeon Jonathan Kaplan said he thinks Ozempic use is going to tick up among fat people soon '-- specifically, Tolentino writes, ''fat people who had been struggling with discomfort, with inconvenience, with social pressure all their lives, who might have lately felt encouraged to try to accept their heavier weight.'' Now, says Kaplan, ''They're no longer going to accept that they should just be happy with the body they have.''

Ozempic seems to give our body-fascist culture permission to say the quiet part out loud, the quiet things we whisper to one another when we sell Barbie merch: Your body is not enough, you should hate your body, you can fix your body only by suffering and injecting and sacrificing money for its eternal maintenance. Those ideas were supposed to be on their way out of the culture by now. Ozempic and Barbie make it clear that they're just as strong as ever.

''WE demand equal rights for fat people in all aspects of life''Body positivity as we know it comes from the fat rights movement, and the fat rights movement is one of political action and solidarity.

The fat rights movement emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as an outgrowth of the civil rights and feminist movements. It is rooted in a simple and radical idea: Fat people are full human beings who should be treated with full human dignity.

''WE see our struggle as allied with the struggles of other oppressed groups against classism, racism, sexism, ageism, financial exploitation, imperialism and the like,'' declared the 1970 Fat Liberation Manifesto. ''WE demand equal rights for fat people in all aspects of life, as promised in the Constitution of the United States. We demand equal access to goods and services in the public domain, and an end to discrimination against us in the areas of employment, education, public facilities and health services.''

Fat activists hosted sit-ins in Central Park and mounted letter-writing campaigns. They picketed the White House and gyms that had fatphobic ad campaigns. This was a movement not of feel-good buzzwords about self-love but of political action, with a concrete agenda and demands to be made of those in power.

One of those demands was specifically about Barbie. It was in the context of an active and radical fat rights movement that feminists picketed the 1972 Toy Fair, singling out Barbie as a tool that teaches little girls to see themselves solely as sex objects.

In the internet era, fat activism birthed body positivity, a movement focused on unapologetic love for one's body. At first, body positivity specifically meant love for one's fat body, but over time, it expanded to mean self-love for all, no matter what their bodies look like. The change was inclusive, but it came with downsides.

''Many of the most popular Body Positivity role models only have 'imperfect' bodies when they take off their clothes and draw arrows pointing to their imperfections,'' writes National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance chair Tigress Osborn for the BBC. ''Visibly fat influencers '-- those who are undeniably fat no matter what they're wearing '-- also have their own followings, but they deal with more harassment, more account bans, and more pushback for 'glorifying obesity.'''

As body positivity became a hashtag that white cisgender straight-size women post under their unretouched bikini pictures, the marginalized bodies that fat activism promised to support drifted to the sidelines of the movement. Meanwhile, the idea of body positivity became a useful cover for corporations that wanted a fashionable veneer of feminism over their products without having to make meaningful structural changes to their work that might affect the bottom line. All you have to do, really, is hire more plus-size models, as long as they have classic hourglass figures rather than big stomachs.

Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie exists because of the same neoliberal logic. Mattel hired a beloved feminist director to make Barbie because they wanted to borrow Gerwig's feminist credentials to make their product more enticing. As Moira Donegan mused in The Nation, ''In a sense, this cold market calculation reveals some unambiguously good news for American feminism: Mattel is telling us, with capitalism's cruel honesty, that it doesn't think a rigidly sexist Barbie can make a profit anymore. People '-- women '-- want something different.''

The good news it reveals for corporations: You can still sell your anatomically impossible Barbie dolls, your Barbie cosmetics, your Barbie Botox. You can pretend that it's different from the old Barbie dolls, the old makeup, the old Botox, but you don't actually have to change anything.

Body positivity and self-love are valuable, especially within a culture that hates you and your body. Embracing body positivity is nevertheless not the same thing as, for instance, advocating for laws against firing people for the size of their bodies, or to make American health care less reliant on the unreliable and unscientific BMI scale as a metric.

Part of what the Ozempic moment makes clear is how easily corporations and influencers and tastemakers can reverse the shallow, superficial celebration of feminism and body positivity that has become so popular over the past decade. If our only responsibility to one another is to make sure that we love our own bodies, then why not champion a brand new diet drug whose long-term side effects are unknown? Why not humiliate those who don't take it? Why not tell children to take it, too?

''Anything can be done in the name of self-love, and the selves that society loves have the power to cause harm without reproach,'' writes body positivity influencer Catherine Mhloyi for Time. ''Dangerous diets and surgeries are bought and sold in pursuit of self-love. '... The reason why it's so easy for people to hop on the Ozempic train is that the mainstream commodification of the body-positive movement is as flavorless and diluted as the low-fat diet regimens of yesteryear.''

Ozempic shows us why we cannot trust this corporate feminism: It is a feminism of aesthetics and individualism and commercial opportunism, not of political commitment. As soon as the cruel honesty of capitalism tells Mattel that it's in their best interest to do so, they'll leave feminist Barbie behind, the same way they abandoned the plus-size models and the body positive photoshoots. They'll start telling us once again, the way they always used to, that the old woman at the bus stop isn't beautiful. They'll tell us she's a loser instead.

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Thu, 28 Dec 2023 17:04

Britain has the worst cocaine habit in Europe, with rates of consumption much higher than Mexico and Colombia, international data show.

Experts warned of an epidemic in its use, fuelled by the UK's binge drinking culture.

They said the drug could be ordered as easily as a pizza, and was as likely to be snorted at a pub or wine bar as at a football match.

Research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that the UK is now second only to Australia for use globally.

The annual figures show 2.7 per cent of adults aged 15 to 64 use the drug in the UK '' the highest figure of 27 countries in Europe.

The figure for the UK is higher than for the US and far above levels of consumption in major drug trafficking countries.

In Britain, men were twice as likely as women to take the drug, with 3.6 per cent using it, against 1.6 per cent of women.

Those in the UK were four times as likely as those in Colombia to take cocaine, with a figure of 0.6 per cent and three times as likely as those in Mexico, where the rate is 0.8 per cent.

The UK rates are also more than twice the average of 1.2 per cent across the 38 OECD developed Western nations that were analysed.

Only Australia exceeds Britain's cocaine habit, with 4.2 per cent of adults consuming the drug, according to the figures.

Dr Niall Campbell, the lead addiction consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital, Roehampton, said the drug had become increasingly socially acceptable.

He said: ''Cocaine use is pretty much an epidemic at the moment. It's everywhere, it's not a drug of the moneyed classes anymore, everybody wants it. They're all fuelling the criminal empire.

''We talk to people at all levels of society. From those on building sites having 'builder's coke', to people paying £5,000 at a time for the pure stuff. If you go to a football match at half time there's a queue of young men going into the loo to use cocaine.

''Alcohol is the number one reason for admissions to our residential addiction unit, and cocaine and alcohol is the second reason. Cocaine and alcohol always go together '' it enables you to drink more.

''It's just a routine part of a night out. People have a couple of pints, then ring the dealer. It's as quick to get cocaine as it is to order a pizza.''

Bern, the capital of Switzerland, is considering legalising the sale of cocaine for recreational use because consumption is so rife. The move for a world-first pilot scheme is being advocated by Left-wing politicians who claim the ''war on drugs has failed''.

Cocaine use fuels A&E visits every dayExperts said the consequences of the drug were being seen in hospitals across the UK.

Dr Campbell said: ''Every day in A&E someone will come in with an irregular heartbeat caused by cocaine,'' he said.

''You get older guys having a meet-up with the lads who have a binge on cocaine and they don't make it. Their hearts can handle it in their 20s or 30s but they can't as they get old.''

Ian Hamilton, an associate professor of addiction at the University of York, said the drug had become far more available and potent, with the price falling relative to income.

''Cocaine is better value than it's ever been,'' he said. ''In the UK, £10 to £20 would buy you a reasonable amount of cocaine, enough for a few lines for a night out. That's the price of a cocktail, or a couple of pints.''

Prof Hamilton said it was now being used by all classes and ages, with use among women catching up with that of men.

He said: ''Most people don't access cocaine through a dealer, it's through a friend or an acquaintance.''

Some people even use the drug at work in an attempt to increase concentration and energy.

Calls for public health campaignProf Hamilton called for a public health campaign to alert people to the risks of the drug, with adverts in public lavatories, wine bars and sports grounds.

As well as a risk of overdosing, the drug can cause heart and respiratory problems, and dependence.

A 2020 government review of the UK's £10 billion drugs market found a sharp rise in illegal drug use Credit : JEREMY SELWYN/EVENING STANDARDIn 2020, a government review of the UK's £10 billion drugs market found a sharp rise in illegal drug use, particularly among the middle classes.

The review led by Dame Carol Black, a medic, found that four in 10 of those consuming cocaine earned more than £40,000 a year, with a 25 per cent rise in drug use in five years.

Cocaine accounted for a fifth of the total £9.6 billion drugs market, with white men under 30 blamed by the review for the surge.

Cocaine users do not 'necessarily think they are addicts'Dame Carol said it was often bought through friends, online or at dinner parties and taken in a ''sanitised way'' where people did not ''necessarily think they were addicts'' and were unlikely to know its supply into the UK was dominated by ruthless Albanian gangs.

Since then the Government has commissioned the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, its independent expert advisory body, to conduct a review into the driving forces behind young people's cocaine use.

Data from the same OECD report '' called Health at a Glance '' shows that British women are the worst in the developed world for binge drinking, sharing the top of the leaderboard with Denmark, with men fourth from top.

A Home Office spokesman said: ''Our 10-year drug strategy, backed by a record £3 billion of investment, is tackling the supply of illicit drugs whilst building a world-class system of treatment for those who abuse drugs to help turn their life around.

''This is a whole-of-government strategy and we are committed to supporting people who suffer from the clutches of addiction and the vulnerable people who are exploited by gangs to fuel their violent trade.''

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 17:03

22 December 2023, 20:15 | Updated: 22 December 2023, 20:17

Cocaine usage is the second highest in the world in the UK. Picture: AlamyThe UK has the second highest rate of cocaine use in the world, figures show.

A new study has found that one in 40 British adults (2.7 percent of the population) take cocaine, more than any other country in Europe.

The only other country that takes more cocaine than the UK is Australia.

Meanwhile, the United States is in fifth, with 2.4 percent of Americans consuming the Class A drug.

In third and fourth is Austria and Spain, respectively.

Cocaine is popular in the UK. Picture: AlamyThe UK's high cocaine usage is thought to be fuelled by the country's drinking culture.

Meanwhile, the USA's geographical proximity to Mexico makes it easier to get cheap cocaine, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) study.

Read More: 'The war on drugs has failed': Switzerland considers legalising cocaine

Read More: Spain seizes tons of cocaine hidden among frozen tuna in shipping containers

As for the types of people that take cocaine, the study found that it is widely used regardless of social class due to its dwindling price and increased availability.

The countries with the lowest cocaine usage in the world include Indonesia, Japan and India.

Binge drinking culture in the UK increases cocaine culture. Picture: AlamyUsage is also particularly high in Ireland, Canada and Netherlands, with two percent of the population taking the illicit drug.

The OECD report warns: "Drug use is linked with, or complicates responses to, a wide range of today's most pressing health and social issues.

"Among these are mental health issues, self-harm, homelessness, youth criminality and the exploitation of vulnerable individuals."

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:56

Welcome to the U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index. This Fair Use Index is a project undertaken by the Office of the Register in support of the 2013 Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement of the Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC). Fair use is a longstanding and vital aspect of American copyright law. The goal of the Index is to make the principles and application of fair use more accessible and understandable to the public by presenting a searchable database of court opinions, including by category and type of use (e.g., music, internet/digitization, parody).

The Fair Use Index tracks a variety of judicial decisions to help both lawyers and non-lawyers better understand the types of uses courts have previously determined to be fair'--or not fair. The decisions span multiple federal jurisdictions, including the U.S. Supreme Court, circuit courts of appeal, and district courts. Please note that while the Index incorporates a broad selection of cases, it does not include all judicial opinions on fair use. The Copyright Office will update and expand the Index periodically.

The Fair Use Index is designed to be user-friendly. For each decision, we have provided a brief summary of the facts, the relevant question(s) presented, and the court's determination as to whether the contested use was fair. You may browse all of the cases, search for cases involving specific subject matter or categories of work, or review cases from specific courts. The Index ordinarily will reflect only the highest court decision issued in a case. It does not include the court opinions themselves. We have provided the full legal citation, however, allowing those who wish to read the actual decisions to access them through free online resources (such as Google Scholar and Justia), commercial databases (such as Westlaw and LEXIS), or the federal courts' PACER electronic filing system, available at www.pacer.gov.

Although the Fair Use Index should prove helpful in understanding what courts have to date considered to be fair or not fair, it is not a substitute for legal advice. Fair use is a judge-created doctrine dating back to the nineteenth century and codified in the 1976 Copyright Act. Both the fact patterns and the legal application have evolved over time, and you should seek legal assistance as necessary and appropriate.

We hope you find the Fair Use Index a helpful resource. If you are concerned as to whether a particular use is fair, however, or believe that someone has made an unauthorized use of a copyrighted work in a manner that is not fair, it is best to consult an attorney.

Please note that the Copyright Office is unable to provide specific legal advice to individual members of the public about questions of fair use. See 37 C.F.R. 201.2(a)(3).

About Fair UseFair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses'--such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research'--as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use. Section 107 calls for consideration of the following four factors in evaluating a question of fair use:

Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes: Courts look at how the party claiming fair use is using the copyrighted work, and are more likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair. This does not mean, however, that all nonprofit education and noncommercial uses are fair and all commercial uses are not fair; instead, courts will balance the purpose and character of the use against the other factors below. Additionally, ''transformative'' uses are more likely to be considered fair. Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work.Nature of the copyrighted work: This factor analyzes the degree to which the work that was used relates to copyright's purpose of encouraging creative expression. Thus, using a more creative or imaginative work (such as a novel, movie, or song) is less likely to support a claim of a fair use than using a factual work (such as a technical article or news item). In addition, use of an unpublished work is less likely to be considered fair.Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: Under this factor, courts look at both the quantity and quality of the copyrighted material that was used. If the use includes a large portion of the copyrighted work, fair use is less likely to be found; if the use employs only a small amount of copyrighted material, fair use is more likely. That said, some courts have found use of an entire work to be fair under certain circumstances. And in other contexts, using even a small amount of a copyrighted work was determined not to be fair because the selection was an important part'--or the ''heart'''--of the work.Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright owner's original work. In assessing this factor, courts consider whether the use is hurting the current market for the original work (for example, by displacing sales of the original) and/or whether the use could cause substantial harm if it were to become widespread.In addition to the above, other factors may also be considered by a court in weighing a fair use question, depending upon the circumstances. Courts evaluate fair use claims on a case-bycase basis, and the outcome of any given case depends on a fact-specific inquiry. This means that there is no formula to ensure that a predetermined percentage or amount of a work'--or specific number of words, lines, pages, copies'--may be used without permission.

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Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:46

As climate change and water scarcity become increasingly urgent issues around the world, governments are turning to new options to ensure adequate water supplies '-- including turning sewage waste into drinking water.

And if you're in California, this may soon be flowing from your kitchen tap.

The State Water Resources Control Board on Tuesday voted to allow water companies to pump treated wastewater into residents' taps in the populous, drought-prone state. In a statement, the board said the decision would give California ''the most advanced standards in the nation for treating wastewater to such an extent that the finished product meets or exceeds current drinking water standards.''

''This is an exciting development in the state's ongoing efforts to find innovative solutions to the challenges of extreme weather driven by climate change,'' said E. Joaquin Esquivel, the chair of the board.

Members unanimously approved the new regulations on Tuesday, after years of discussions and just before a deadline set six years ago for the state to adopt regulations for reusing wastewater by the end of 2023. After the new rules are finalized next year, water companies will be able to submit plans for projects to be approved by the board.

The new steps will save energy and benefit the environment, Esquivel said, adding that ''these regulations ensure that the water produced is not only safe, but purer than many drinking water sources we now rely on.''

Many people are already drinking treated wastewater, Esquivel said, the Associated Press reported. What exists now is wastewater treated by what's known as ''indirect potable reuse,'' a process where wastewater is released into natural water bodies, such as reservoirs and rivers, before being turned into drinking water.

Tuesday's vote allows for that treatment.

Under the new regulations approved Tuesday, a version of which was laid out in a 62-page document published earlier this year, any water being recycled this way must undergo at least three separate treatment processes and will be monitored and further treated for pathogens.

These include the use of an ''ozonation process'' '-- the addition of ozone gas, a powerful oxidant disinfectant '-- to the water, followed by the addition of biologically activated carbon to the water, according to the document. The water will then undergo a ''reverse osmosis'' process, which physically removes contaminants from water, and an advanced oxidation process, in which chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide or chlorine are added to clean the water.

Here's where water is running out in the world '-- and why

The new policy does not mandate water companies to distribute water via direct potable reuse, but allows them to so, in a move that could help conserve scarce resources and reduce the amount of waste released into seas and natural waterways.

California recently spent more than three years in drought, amid heat waves and record wildfires. To deal with the growing issue of limited water supplies, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) released new proposals for water recycling targets last year, which are set to cost $27 billion by 2040, according to the AP. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water for nearly half the state's 39 million residents, has already begun construction on a major water recycling project, the AP reported.

The idea of turning waste into drinking water is not new. Windhoek, the capital of Namibia '-- one of the driest countries in Africa '-- became the first city in the world to introduce wastewater recycling more than 30 years ago, according to the city's plant.

Singapore has installed an extensive filtration system that can treat nearly 238 million gallons of water a day, enough to fill 350 Olympic swimming pools. Most of it goes toward industrial operations and for cooling systems, but part of it is mixed into the city-state's drinking water.

California '-- where, in the 1990s, similar proposals were derided as ''toilet to tap'' '-- is also not the only U.S. state using these technologies, as communities gradually warm up to ideas that once sparked outrage.

Texas began operating its first direct potable reuse facility in 2013, while Colorado introduced guidelines for the use of wastewater for drinking earlier this year.

In Britain '-- which has faced droughts and record temperatures, and where residents opposed similar plans in 2013 '-- the head of the country's environment agency said last year that people needed to become ''less squeamish'' about the concept.

Rachel Pannett contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:29

HowTo

5 lbs meat Chuck steaks 1.5 cubes

the cast iron pot (fucking hot) put oil in and coat it, then pour it out

oil in the pot

brown the meat - cover the bottom this will carmelize smoking and outrageous

flip the pieces around, try not to let it give off moisture

repeat until its all cooked

adding stuff to it

4 hours of cooking

onion-diced

couple of carrots

some celery

salt and pepper

marjoram

dump in one bottle of pinot noir

cup of chicken broth

3 cloves of garlic smashed and thrown in

some meat is exposed

put in oven for 4 hours at 350 convection

watch after one hour

stir with wooden spoon

after 2 hours, throw in 4 potatoes cut in half

after 30 minutes check again, the liquid should be thickening

sweet wine to add to it (red wine)

or

A cup of Tamara cooking sake

A little tabasco

hour number 3 the stew might be done

taste season if needed

if tender and ready, add some flour maybe to thicken the sauce

Corn starch and water if needed

keep on low heat in oven

could do mashed potatoes

a salad

rice

turnips

Pineapple

Tamara cooking sake

Julia Childs Version

Google search on Beef Bourguignon

Ingredients

Onions

Carrots

Marjoram

Chicken broth

Wine

Cotes du Rhone 2009*-10-11Tamara Cooking sake

5 lbs chuck steaks

celery

pineapple

potatos

turnips?

salad

Corn starch

Served to

Jof and Denis

Laurie Frick, Prof Russel, Jennifer, MArc

Wine

Cotes du Rhone 2009*-10-11

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:18

Frequently Asked QuestionsFinCEN has prepared the following Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in response to inquiries received relating to the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Rule.

These FAQs are explanatory only and do not supplement or modify any obligations imposed by statute or regulation. Please refer to the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Rule, available at www.fincen.gov/boi, for details on specific provisions. FinCEN expects to publish additional guidance in the future. Questions may be submitted on FinCEN's Contact web page.

PDF versions of the FAQs in English and other languages are available here.

A. General Questions

A. 1. What is beneficial ownership information?

A. 2. Why do companies have to report beneficial ownership information to the U.S. Department of the Treasury?

A. 3. Under the Corporate Transparency Act, who can access beneficial ownership information?

A. 4. How will companies become aware of the BOI reporting requirements?

B. Reporting Process

B. 1. Should my company report beneficial ownership information now?

B. 2. When do I need to report my company's beneficial ownership information to FinCEN?

B. 3. When will FinCEN accept beneficial ownership information reports?

B. 4. Will there be a fee for submitting a beneficial ownership information report to FinCEN?

B. 5. How will I report my company's beneficial ownership information?

B. 6. Where can I find the form to report?

B. 7. Is a reporting company required to use an attorney or a certified public accountant (CPA) to submit beneficial ownership information to FinCEN?

B. 8. Who can file a BOI report on behalf of a reporting company, and what information will be collected on filers?

C. Reporting Company

C. 1. What companies will be required to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN?

C. 2. Are some companies exempt from the reporting requirement?

C. 3. Are certain corporate entities, such as statutory trusts, business trusts, or foundations, reporting companies?

C. 4. Is a trust considered a reporting company if it registers with a court of law for the purpose of establishing the court's jurisdiction over any disputes involving the trust?

C. 5. Does the activity or revenue of a company determine whether it is a reporting company?

C. 6. Is a sole proprietorship a reporting company?

D. Beneficial Owner

D. 1. Who is a beneficial owner of a reporting company?

D. 2. What is substantial control?

D. 3. One of the indicators of substantial control is that the individual is an important decision-maker. What are important decisions?

D. 4. What is an ownership interest?

D. 5. Who qualifies for an exception from the beneficial owner definition?

D. 6. Is my accountant or lawyer considered a beneficial owner?

D. 7. What information should a reporting company report about a beneficial owner who holds their ownership interests in the reporting company through multiple exempt entities?

D. 8. Is an unaffiliated company that provides a service to the reporting company by managing its day-to-day operations, but does not make decisions on important matters, a beneficial owner of the reporting company?

D. 9. Is a member of a reporting company's board of directors always a beneficial owner of the reporting company?

D. 10. Is a reporting company's designated ''partnership representative'' or ''tax matters partner'' a beneficial owner?

E. Company Applicant

E. 1. Who is a company applicant of a reporting company?

E. 2. Which reporting companies are required to report company applicants?

E. 3. Is my accountant or lawyer considered a company applicant?

E. 4. Can a company applicant be removed from a BOI report if the company applicant no longer has a relationship with the reporting company?

F. Reporting Requirements

F. 1. Will a reporting company need to report any other information in addition to information about its beneficial owners?

F. 2. What information will a reporting company have to report about itself?

F. 3. What information will a reporting company have to report about its beneficial owners?

F. 4. What information will a reporting company have to report about its company applicants?

F. 5. What are some acceptable forms of identification that will meet the reporting requirement?

F. 6. Is there a requirement to annually report beneficial ownership information?

F. 7. Does a reporting company have to report information about its parent or subsidiary companies?

F. 8. Can a reporting company report a P.O. box as its current address?

F. 9. Have I met FinCEN's BOI reporting obligation if I filed a form or report that provides beneficial ownership information to a state office, a financial institution, or the IRS?

G. Initial Report

G. 1. When do I have to file an initial beneficial ownership information report with FinCEN?

G. 2. Can a parent company file a single BOI report on behalf of its group of companies?

G. 3. How can I obtain a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) for a new company within 30 days so that I can file an initial beneficial ownership information report on time?

G. 4. Should an initial BOI report include historical beneficial owners of a reporting company, or only beneficial owners as of the time of filing?

G. 5. How does a company created or registered after January 1, 2024, determine its date of creation or registration?

H. Updated Report

H. 1. What should I do if previously reported information changes?

H. 2. What are some likely triggers for needing to update a beneficial ownership information report?

H. 3. Is an updated BOI report required when the type of ownership interest a beneficial owner has in a reporting company changes?

H. 4. If a reporting company needs to update one piece of information on a BOI report, such as its legal name, does the reporting company have to fill out an entire new BOI report?

H. 5. Can a filer submit a late updated BOI report?

H. 6. If a reporting company last filed a ''newly exempt entity'' BOI report but subsequently loses its exempt status, what should it do?

I. Corrected Report

I. 1. What should I do if I learn of an inaccuracy in a report?

J. Newly Exempt Entity Report

J. 1. What should a reporting company do if it becomes exempt after already filing a report?

K. Compliance/Enforcement

K. 1. What happens if a reporting company does not report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN or fails to update or correct the information within the required timeframe?

K. 2. What penalties do individuals face for violating BOI reporting requirements?

K. 3. Who can be held liable for violating BOI reporting requirements?

K. 4. Is a reporting company responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the information that it reports to FinCEN, even if the reporting company obtains that information from another party?

K. 5. What should a reporting company do if a beneficial owner or company applicant withholds information?

L. Reporting Company Exemptions

L. 1. What are the criteria for the tax-exempt entity exemption from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirement?

L. 2. What are the criteria for the inactive entity exemption from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirement?

L. 3. What are the criteria for the subsidiary exemption from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirement?

L. 4. If I own a group of related companies, can I consolidate employees across those companies to meet the criteria of a large operating company exemption from the reporting company definition?

L. 5. How does a company report to FinCEN that the company is exempt?

M. FinCEN Identifier

M. 1. What is a FinCEN identifier?

M. 2. How can I use a FinCEN identifier?

M. 3. How do I request a FinCEN identifier?

M. 4. Are FinCEN identifiers required?

M. 5. Do I need to update or correct the information I submitted to obtain a FinCEN identifier?

M. 6. Is there any way to deactivate an individual's FinCEN identifier that is no longer in use so that the individual no longer has to update the information associated with it?

M. 7. Who can request a FinCEN identifier on behalf of an individual?

N. Third-Party Service Providers

N. 1. Can a third-party service provider assist reporting companies by submitting required information to FinCEN on their behalf?

N. 2. What type of evidence will a reporting company receive as confirmation that its BOI report has been successfully filed by a third-party service provider?

N. 3. Will a third-party service provider be able to submit multiple BOI reports to FinCEN at the same time?

A. General Questions

A. 1. What is beneficial ownership information?

Beneficial ownership information refers to identifying information about the individuals who directly or indirectly own or control a company.

[Issued March 24, 2023]

Back to topA. 2. Why do companies have to report beneficial ownership information to the U.S. Department of the Treasury?

In 2021, Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act on a bipartisan basis. This law creates a new beneficial ownership information reporting requirement as part of the U.S. government's efforts to make it harder for bad actors to hide or benefit from their ill-gotten gains through shell companies or other opaque ownership structures.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topA. 3. Under the Corporate Transparency Act, who can access beneficial ownership information?

FinCEN will permit Federal, State, local, and Tribal officials, as well as certain foreign officials who submit a request through a U.S. Federal government agency, to obtain beneficial ownership information for authorized activities related to national security, intelligence, and law enforcement. Financial institutions will also have access to beneficial ownership information in certain circumstances, with the consent of the reporting company. Those financial institutions' regulators will also have access to beneficial ownership information when they supervise the financial institutions.

FinCEN is developing the rules that will govern access to and handling of beneficial ownership information. Beneficial ownership information reported to FinCEN will be stored in a secure, non-public database using rigorous information security methods and controls typically used in the Federal government to protect non-classified yet sensitive information systems at the highest security level. FinCEN will work closely with those authorized to access beneficial ownership information to ensure that they understand their roles and responsibilities to ensure that the reported information is used only for authorized purposes and handled in a way that protects its security and confidentiality.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topA. 4. How will companies become aware of the BOI reporting requirements?

FinCEN is engaged in a robust outreach and education campaign to raise awareness of and help reporting companies understand the new reporting requirements. That campaign involves virtual and in-person outreach events and comprehensive guidance in a variety of formats and languages, including multimedia content and the Small Entity Compliance Guide, as well as new channels of communication, including social media platforms. FinCEN is also engaging with governmental offices at the federal and state levels, small business and trade associations, and interest groups.

FinCEN will continue to provide guidance, information, and updates related to the BOI reporting requirements on its BOI webpage, www.fincen.gov/boi. Subscribe here to receive updates via email from FinCEN about BOI reporting obligations.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topB. Reporting Process

B. 1. Should my company report beneficial ownership information now?

No. No one needs to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN until January 1, 2024. FinCEN is currently not accepting any beneficial ownership information reports.

[Issued March 24, 2023]

Back to topB. 2. When do I need to report my company's beneficial ownership information to FinCEN?

A reporting company created or registered to do business before January 1, 2024, will have until January 1, 2025 to file its initial beneficial ownership information report.

A reporting company created or registered on or after January 1, 2024, and before January 1, 2025, will have 90 calendar days after receiving notice of the company's creation or registration to file its initial BOI report. This 90-calendar day deadline runs from the time the company receives actual notice that its creation or registration is effective, or after a secretary of state or similar office first provides public notice of its creation or registration, whichever is earlier.

Reporting companies created or registered on or after January 1, 2025, will have 30 calendar days from actual or public notice that the company's creation or registration is effective to file their initial BOI reports with FinCEN.

[Updated December 1, 2023]

Back to topB. 3. When will FinCEN accept beneficial ownership information reports?

FinCEN will begin accepting beneficial ownership information reports on January 1, 2024. Beneficial ownership information reports will not be accepted before then.

[Issued March 24, 2023]

Back to topB. 4. Will there be a fee for submitting a beneficial ownership information report to FinCEN?

No. There will be no fee for submitting your beneficial ownership information report to FinCEN.

[Issued March 24, 2023]

Back to topB. 5. How will I report my company's beneficial ownership information?

If you are required to report your company's beneficial ownership information to FinCEN, you will do so electronically through a secure filing system available via FinCEN's website. This system is currently being developed and will be available before your report must be filed.

[Issued March 24, 2023]

Back to topB. 6. Where can I find the form to report?

B. 7. Is a reporting company required to use an attorney or a certified public accountant (CPA) to submit beneficial ownership information to FinCEN?

No. FinCEN expects that many, if not most, reporting companies will be able to submit their beneficial ownership information to FinCEN on their own using the guidance FinCEN has issued. Reporting companies that need help meeting their reporting obligations can consult with professional service providers such as lawyers or accountants.

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topB. 8. Who can file a BOI report on behalf of a reporting company, and what information will be collected on filers?

Anyone whom the reporting company authorizes to act on its behalf'--such as an employee, owner, or third-party service provider'--may file a BOI report on the reporting company's behalf. When submitting the BOI report, individual filers should be prepared to provide basic contact information about themselves, including their name and email address or phone number.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topC. Reporting Company

C. 1. What companies will be required to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN?

Companies required to report are called reporting companies. There are two types of reporting companies:

Domestic reporting companies are corporations, limited liability companies, and any other entities created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office in the United States.Foreign reporting companies are entities (including corporations and limited liability companies) formed under the law of a foreign country that have registered to do business in the United States by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office.There are 23 types of entities that are exempt from the reporting requirements (see Question C.2). Carefully review the qualifying criteria before concluding that your company is exempt.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide for beneficial ownership information reporting includes the following flowchart to help identify if a company is a reporting company (see Chapter 1.1, ''Is my company a ''reporting company''?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topC. 2. Are some companies exempt from the reporting requirement?

Yes, 23 types of entities are exempt from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements. These entities include publicly traded companies meeting specified requirements, many nonprofits, and certain large operating companies.

The following table summarizes the 23 exemptions:

Exemption No.Exemption Short Title 1 Securities reporting issuer 2 Governmental authority 3 Bank 4 Credit union 5 Depository institution holding company 6 Money services business 7 Broker or dealer in securities 8 Securities exchange or clearing agency 9 Other Exchange Act registered entity 10 Investment company or investment adviser 11 Venture capital fund adviser 12 Insurance company 13 State-licensed insurance producer 14 Commodity Exchange Act registered entity 15 Accounting firm 16 Public utility 17 Financial market utility 18 Pooled investment vehicle 19 Tax-exempt entity 20 Entity assisting a tax-exempt entity 21 Large operating company 22 Subsidiary of certain exempt entities 23 Inactive entityFinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes this table and checklists for each of the 23 exemptions that may help determine whether a company meets an exemption (see Chapter 1.2, ''Is my company exempt from the reporting requirements?''). Companies should carefully review the qualifying criteria before concluding that they are exempt. Please see additional FAQs about reporting company exemptions in ''L. Reporting Company Exemptions'' below.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topC. 3. Are certain corporate entities, such as statutory trusts, business trusts, or foundations, reporting companies?

It depends. A domestic entity such as a statutory trust, business trust, or foundation is a reporting company only if it was created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or similar office. Likewise, a foreign entity is a reporting company only if it filed a document with a secretary of state or a similar office to register to do business in the United States.

State laws vary on whether certain entity types, such as trusts, require the filing of a document with the secretary of state or similar office to be created or registered.

If a trust is created in a U.S. jurisdiction that requires such filing, then it is a reporting company, unless an exemption applies.Similarly, not all states require foreign entities to register by filing a document with a secretary of state or a similar office to do business in the state.

However, if a foreign entity has to file a document with a secretary of state or a similar office to register to do business in a state, and does so, it is a reporting company, unless an exemption applies.Entities should also consider if any exemptions to the reporting requirements apply to them. For example, a foundation may not be required to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN if the foundation qualifies for the tax-exempt entity exemption.

Chapter 1 of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide (''Does my company have to report its beneficial owners?'') may assist companies in identifying whether they need to report.

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topC. 4. Is a trust considered a reporting company if it registers with a court of law for the purpose of establishing the court's jurisdiction over any disputes involving the trust?

No. The registration of a trust with a court of law merely to establish the court's jurisdiction over any disputes involving the trust does not make the trust a reporting company.

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topC. 5. Does the activity or revenue of a company determine whether it is a reporting company?

Sometimes. A reporting company is (1) any corporation, limited liability company, or other similar entity that was created in the United States by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or similar office (in which case it is a domestic reporting company), or any legal entity that has been registered to do business in the United States by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or similar office (in which case it is a foreign reporting company), that (2) does not qualify for any of the exemptions provided under the Corporate Transparency Act. An entity's activities and revenue, along with other factors in some cases, can qualify it for one of those exemptions. For example, there is an exemption for certain inactive entities, and another for any company that reported more than $5 million in gross receipts or sales in the previous year and satisfies other exemption criteria. Neither engaging solely in passive activities like holding rental properties, for example, nor being unprofitable necessarily exempts an entity from the BOI reporting requirements.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide provides additional information concerning exemptions in Chapter 1.2, ''Is my company exempt from the reporting requirements?''

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topC. 6. Is a sole proprietorship a reporting company?

No, unless a sole proprietorship was created (or, if a foreign sole proprietorship, registered to do business) in the United States by filing a document with a secretary of state or similar office. An entity is a reporting company only if it was created (or, if a foreign company, registered to do business) in the United States by filing such a document. Filing a document with a government agency to obtain (1) an IRS employer identification number, (2) a fictitious business name, or (3) a professional or occupational license does not create a new entity, and therefore does not make a sole proprietorship filing such a document a reporting company.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topD. Beneficial Owner

D. 1. Who is a beneficial owner of a reporting company?

A beneficial owner is an individual who either directly or indirectly: (1) exercises substantial control (see Question D.2) over the reporting company, or (2) owns or controls at least 25% of the reporting company's ownership interests (see Question D.4).

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide provides checklists and examples that may assist in identifying beneficial owners (see Chapter 2.3 ''What steps can I take to identify my company's beneficial owners?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topD. 2. What is substantial control?

An individual can exercise substantial control over a reporting company in four different ways. If the individual falls into any of the categories below, the individual is exercising substantial control:

The individual is a senior officer (the company's president, chief financial officer, general counsel, chief executive office, chief operating officer, or any other officer who performs a similar function).The individual has authority to appoint or remove certain officers or a majority of directors (or similar body) of the reporting company.The individual is an important decision-maker for the reporting company. See Question D.3 for more information.The individual has any other form of substantial control over the reporting company as explained further in FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide (see Chapter 2.1, ''What is substantial control?'').[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topD. 3. One of the indicators of substantial control is that the individual is an important decision-maker. What are important decisions?

Important decisions include decisions about a reporting company's business, finances, and structure. An individual that directs, determines, or has substantial influence over these important decisions exercises substantial control over a reporting company. Chapter 2.1, ''What is substantial control?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide provides the following information:

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topD. 4. What is an ownership interest?

An ownership interest is generally an arrangement that establishes ownership rights in the reporting company. Examples of ownership interests include shares of equity, stock, voting rights, or any other mechanism used to establish ownership.

Chapter 2.2, ''What is ownership interest?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide discusses ownership interests and sets out steps to assist in determining the percentage of ownership interests held by an individual.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topD. 5. Who qualifies for an exception from the beneficial owner definition?

There are five instances in which an individual who would otherwise be a beneficial owner of a reporting company qualifies for an exception. In those cases, the reporting company does not have to report that individual as a beneficial owner to FinCEN.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes a checklist to help determine whether any exceptions apply to individuals who might otherwise qualify as beneficial owners (see Chapter 2.4. ''Who qualifies for an exception from the beneficial owner definition?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topD. 6. Is my accountant or lawyer considered a beneficial owner?

Accountants and lawyers generally do not qualify as beneficial owners, but that may depend on the work being performed.

Accountants and lawyers who provide general accounting or legal services are not considered beneficial owners because ordinary, arms-length advisory or other third-party professional services to a reporting company are not considered to be ''substantial control'' (see Question D.2). In addition, a lawyer or accountant who is designated as an agent of the reporting company may qualify for the ''nominee, intermediary, custodian, or agent'' exception from the beneficial owner definition.

However, an individual who holds the position of general counsel in a reporting company is a ''senior officer'' of that company and is therefore a beneficial owner. FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes a checklist to help determine whether an individual qualifies for an exception to the beneficial owner definition (see Chapter 2.4, ''Who qualifies for an exception from the beneficial owner definition?'').

[Updated November 16, 2023]

Back to topD. 7. What information should a reporting company report about a beneficial owner who holds their ownership interests in the reporting company through multiple exempt entities?

If a beneficial owner owns or controls their ownership interests in a reporting company exclusively through multiple exempt entities, then the names of all of those exempt entities may be reported to FinCEN instead of the individual beneficial owner's information.

Note that this special rule does not apply when an individual owns or controls ownership interests in a reporting company through both exempt and non-exempt entities. In that case, the reporting company must report the individual as a beneficial owner (if no exception applies), but the exempt companies do not need to be listed.FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes more information about this special reporting rule in Chapter 4.2, ''What do I report if a special reporting rule applies to my company?''

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topD. 8. Is an unaffiliated company that provides a service to the reporting company by managing its day-to-day operations, but does not make decisions on important matters, a beneficial owner of the reporting company?

The unaffiliated company itself cannot be a beneficial owner of the reporting company because a beneficial owner must be an individual. Any individuals that exercise substantial control over the reporting company through the unaffiliated company must be reported as beneficial owners of the reporting company. However, individuals who do not direct, determine, or have substantial influence over important decisions made by the reporting company, and do not otherwise exercise substantial control, may not be beneficial owners of the reporting company.

Please see Chapter 2.1 of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide, ''What is substantial control?'' for additional information on how to determine whether an individual has substantial control over a reporting company.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topD. 9. Is a member of a reporting company's board of directors always a beneficial owner of the reporting company?

No. A beneficial owner of a company is any individual who, directly or indirectly, exercises substantial control over a reporting company, or who owns or controls at least 25 percent of the ownership interests of a reporting company.

Whether a particular director meets any of these criteria is a question that the reporting company must consider on a director-by-director basis.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information on how to determine if an individual qualifies as a beneficial owner in Chapter 2, ''Who is a beneficial owner of my company?''. This chapter includes separate sections with more information about substantial control and ownership interest: Chapter 2.1 ''What is substantial control?'' and Chapter 2.2 ''What is ownership interest?''

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topD. 10. Is a reporting company's designated ''partnership representative'' or ''tax matters partner'' a beneficial owner?

It depends. A reporting company's ''partnership representative,'' as defined in 26 U.S.C. 6223, or ''tax matters partner,'' as the term was previously defined in now-repealed 26 U.S.C. 6231(a)(7), is not automatically a beneficial owner of the reporting company. However, such an individual may qualify as a beneficial owner of the reporting company if the individual exercises substantial control over the reporting company, or owns or controls at least 25 percent of the company's ownership interests.

Chapter 2 of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide (''Who is a beneficial owner of my company?'') has additional information on how to determine if an individual qualifies as a beneficial owner of a reporting company.

Note that a ''partnership representative'' or ''tax matters partner'' serving in the role of a designated agent of the reporting company may qualify for the ''nominee, intermediary, custodian, or agent'' exception from the beneficial owner definition.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information on such exemptions in Chapter 2.4, ''Who qualifies for an exception from the beneficial owner definition?''

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topE. Company Applicant

E. 1. Who is a company applicant of a reporting company?

Only reporting companies created or registered on or after January 1, 2024, will need to report their company applicants.

A company that must report its company applicants will have only up to two individuals who could qualify as company applicants:

The individual who directly files the document that creates or registers the company; andIf more than one person is involved in the filing, the individual who is primarily responsible for directing or controlling the filing.The following flowchart can help identify the company applicant.

In addition, Chapter 3.2, ''Who is a company applicant of my company?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information to help identify company applicants.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topE. 2. Which reporting companies are required to report company applicants?

Not all reporting companies have to report their company applicants to FinCEN.

A reporting company must report its company applicants only if it is either a:

Domestic reporting company created in the United States on or after January 1, 2024; orForeign reporting company first registered to do business in the United States on or after January 1, 2024.A reporting company does not have to report its company applicants if it is either a:

Domestic reporting company created in the United States before January 1, 2024; orForeign reporting company first registered to do business in the United States before January 1, 2024.Below is summary of the company applicant reporting requirement. Chapter 3.1, ''Is my company required to report its company applicants?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topE. 3. Is my accountant or lawyer considered a company applicant?

An accountant or lawyer could be a company applicant, depending on their role in filing the document that creates or registers a reporting company. In many cases, company applicants may work for a business formation service or law firm.

An accountant or lawyer may be a company applicant if they directly filed the document that created or registered the reporting company. If more than one person is involved in the filing of the creation or registration document, an accountant or lawyer may be a company applicant if they are primarily responsible for directing or controlling the filing.

For example, an attorney at a law firm that offers business formation services may be primarily responsible for overseeing preparation and filing of a reporting company's incorporation documents. A paralegal at the law firm may directly file the incorporation documents at the attorney's request. Under those circumstances, the attorney and the paralegal are both company applicants for the reporting company.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topE. 4. Can a company applicant be removed from a BOI report if the company applicant no longer has a relationship with the reporting company?

No. A company applicant may not be removed from a BOI report even if the company applicant no longer has a relationship with the reporting company. A reporting company created on or after January 1, 2024, is required to report company applicant information in its initial BOI report, but is not required to file an updated BOI report if information about a company applicant changes.

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topF. Reporting Requirements

F. 1. Will a reporting company need to report any other information in addition to information about its beneficial owners?

Yes. The information that needs to be reported, however, depends on when the company was created or registered.

If a reporting company is created or registered on or after January 1, 2024, the reporting company will need to report information about itself, its beneficial owners, and its company applicants.If a reporting company was created or registered before January 1, 2024, the reporting company only needs to provide information about itself and its beneficial owners. The reporting company does not need to provide information about its company applicants.[Issued March 24, 2023]

Back to topF. 2. What information will a reporting company have to report about itself?

A reporting company will have to report:

Its legal name;Any trade names, ''doing business as'' (d/b/a), or ''trading as'' (t/a) names;The current street address of its principal place of business if that address is in the United States (for example, a U.S. reporting company's headquarters), or, for reporting companies whose principal place of business is outside the United States, the current address from which the company conducts business in the United States (for example, a foreign reporting company's U.S. headquarters);Its jurisdiction of formation or registration; andIts Taxpayer Identification Number (or, if a foreign reporting company has not been issued a TIN, a tax identification number issued by a foreign jurisdiction and the name of the jurisdiction).A reporting company will also have to indicate whether it is filing an initial report, or a correction or an update of a prior report.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes a checklist to help identify the information required to be reported (see Chapter 4.1, ''What information should I collect about my company, its beneficial owners, and its company applicants?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topF. 3. What information will a reporting company have to report about its beneficial owners?

For each individual who is a beneficial owner, a reporting company will have to provide:

The individual's name;Date of birth;Residential address; andAn identifying number from an acceptable identification document such as a passport or U.S. driver's license, and the name of the issuing state or jurisdiction of identification document (for examples of acceptable identification, see Question F.5).The reporting company will also have to report an image of the identification document used to obtain the identifying number in item 4.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes a checklist to help identify the information required to be reported (see Chapter 4.1, ''What information should I collect about my company, its beneficial owners, and its company applicants?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topF. 4. What information will a reporting company have to report about its company applicants?

For each individual who is a company applicant, a reporting company will have to provide:

The individual's name;Date of birth;Address; andAn identifying number from an acceptable identification document such as a passport or U.S. driver's license, and the name of the issuing state or jurisdiction of identification document (for examples of acceptable identification, see Question F.5).The reporting company will also have to report an image of the identification document used to obtain the identifying number in item 4.

If the company applicant works in corporate formation'--for example, as an attorney or corporate formation agent'--then the reporting company must report the company applicant's business address. Otherwise, the reporting company must report the company applicant's residential address.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes a checklist to help identify the information required to be reported (see Chapter 4.1, ''What information should I collect about my company, its beneficial owners, and its company applicants?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topF. 5. What are some acceptable forms of identification that will meet the reporting requirement?

The only acceptable forms of identification are:

A non-expired U.S. driver's license (including any driver's licenses issued by a commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States);A non-expired identification document issued by a U.S. state or local government, or Indian Tribe;A non-expired passport issued by the U.S. government; orA non-expired passport issued by a foreign government (only when an individual does not have one of the other three forms of identification listed above).[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topF. 6. Is there a requirement to annually report beneficial ownership information?

No. There is no annual reporting requirement. Reporting companies must file an initial BOI report and updated or corrected BOI reports as needed.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes more information about when to file initial BOI reports in Chapter 5.1, ''When should my company file its initial BOI report?'' and when to file updated and corrected BOI reports in Chapter 6, ''What if there are changes to or inaccuracies in reported information?''

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topF. 7. Does a reporting company have to report information about its parent or subsidiary companies?

No, though if a special reporting rule applies, the reporting company may report a parent company's name instead of beneficial ownership information. A reporting company usually must report information about itself, its beneficial owners, and, for reporting companies created or registered on or after January 1, 2024, its company applicants. However, under a special reporting rule, a reporting company may report a parent company's name in lieu of information about its beneficial owners if its beneficial owners only hold their ownership interest in the reporting company through the parent company and the parent company is an exempt entity.

Chapter 4 of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide (''What specific information does my company need to report?'') provides additional information on what must be reported to FinCEN. Chapter 4.2 (''What do I report if a special reporting rule applies to my company?'') specifically provides details on what information must be reported pursuant to special reporting rules.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topF. 8. Can a reporting company report a P.O. box as its current address?

No. The reporting company address must be a U.S. street address and cannot be a P.O. box.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information on what must be reported in Chapter 4, ''What specific information does my company need to report?''

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topF. 9. Have I met FinCEN's BOI reporting obligation if I filed a form or report that provides beneficial ownership information to a state office, a financial institution, or the IRS?

No. Reporting companies must report beneficial ownership information directly to FinCEN. Congress enacted a law, the Corporate Transparency Act, that requires the reporting of beneficial ownership information directly to FinCEN. State or local governments, financial institutions, and other federal agencies, such as the IRS, may separately require entities to report certain beneficial ownership information. However, by law, those requirements are not a substitute for reporting beneficial ownership information to FinCEN.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topG. Initial Report

G. 1. When do I have to file an initial beneficial ownership information report with FinCEN?

If your company existed before January 1, 2024, it must file its initial beneficial ownership information report by January 1, 2025.

If your company was created or registered on or after January 1, 2024, and before January 1, 2025, then it must file its initial beneficial ownership information report within 90 calendar days after receiving actual or public notice that its creation or registration is effective. Specifically, this 90-calendar day deadline runs from the time the company receives actual notice that its creation or registration is effective, or after a secretary of state or similar office first provides public notice of its creation or registration, whichever is earlier.

If your company was created or registered on or after January 1, 2025, it must file its initial beneficial ownership information report within 30 calendar days after receiving actual or public notice that its creation or registration is effective. The following sets out the initial report timelines. .

Chapter 5.1 ''When should my company file its initial BOI report?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide has additional information about the reporting timelines.

[Updated December 1, 2023]

Back to topG. 2. Can a parent company file a single BOI report on behalf of its group of companies?

No. Any company that meets the definition of a reporting company and is not exempt is required to file its own BOI report.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topG. 3. How can I obtain a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) for a new company within 30 days so that I can file an initial beneficial ownership information report on time?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offers a free online application for an Employer Identification Number (EIN), a type of TIN, which is provided immediately upon submission of the application. For more information on TINs, see ''Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN)'' on the IRS.gov website. For more information on Employer Identification Numbers and to access the EIN online application, see ''Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) Online'' on the IRS.gov website.

A paper filing is required if a foreign person that does not have an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) applies for an EIN. According to the IRS, receiving an EIN through this process could take six to eight weeks. If you are a foreign person that may need to obtain an EIN for a reporting company, we recommend applying early for an ITIN. Foreign reporting companies that are not subject to U.S. corporate income tax may report a foreign tax identification number and the name of the relevant jurisdiction instead of an EIN or TIN.

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topG. 4. Should an initial BOI report include historical beneficial owners of a reporting company, or only beneficial owners as of the time of filing?

An initial BOI report should only include the beneficial owners as of the time of the filing. Reporting companies should notify FinCEN of changes to beneficial owners and related BOI through updated reports.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes more information about when to file updated or corrected BOI reports in Chapter 6, ''What if there are changes to or inaccuracies in reported information?''

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topG. 5. How does a company created or registered after January 1, 2024, determine its date of creation or registration?

The date of creation or registration for a reporting company is the earlier of the date on which: (1) the reporting company receives actual notice that its creation (or registration) has become effective; or (2) a secretary of state or similar office first provides public notice, such as through a publicly accessible registry, that the domestic reporting company has been created or the foreign reporting company has been registered.

FinCEN recognizes that there are varying state filing practices. In certain states, automated systems provide notice of creation or registration to newly created or registered companies. In other states, no actual notice of creation or registration is provided, and newly created companies receive notice through the public posting of state records. FinCEN believes that individuals who create or register reporting companies will likely stay apprised of creation or registration notices or publications, given those individuals' interest in establishing an operating business or engaging in the activity for which the reporting company is created.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topH. Updated Report

H. 1. What should I do if previously reported information changes?

If there is any change to the required information about your company or its beneficial owners in a beneficial ownership information report that your company filed, your company must file an updated report no later than 30 days after the date of the change.

A reporting company is not required to file an updated report for any changes to previously reported information about a company applicant.

The following infographic sets out updated reports timelines.

Chapter 6.1, ''What should I do if previously reported information changes?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide provides additional information.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topH. 2. What are some likely triggers for needing to update a beneficial ownership information report?

The following are some examples of the changes that would require an updated beneficial ownership information report:

Any change to the information reported for the reporting company, such as registering a new business name.A change in beneficial owners, such as a new CEO, or a sale that changes who meets the ownership interest threshold of 25 percent (see Question D.4 for more information about ownership interests).Any change to a beneficial owner's name, address, or unique identifying number previously provided to FinCEN. If a beneficial owner obtained a new driver's license or other identifying document that includes a changed name, address, or identifying number, the reporting company also would have to file an updated beneficial ownership information report with FinCEN, including an image of the new identifying document.FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide provides additional guidance on triggers requiring an updated beneficial ownership information report (see Chapter 6.1 ''What should I do if previously reported information changes?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topH. 3. Is an updated BOI report required when the type of ownership interest a beneficial owner has in a reporting company changes?

No. A change to the type of ownership interest a beneficial owner has in a reporting company'--for example, a conversion of preferred shares to common stock'--does not require the reporting company to file an updated BOI report because FinCEN does not require companies to report the type of interest. Updated BOI reports are required when information reported to FinCEN about the reporting company or its beneficial owners changes.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information on when and how reporting companies must update information in Chapter 6, ''What if there are changes to or inaccuracies in reported information?''

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topH. 4. If a reporting company needs to update one piece of information on a BOI report, such as its legal name, does the reporting company have to fill out an entire new BOI report?

Updated BOI reports will require all fields to be submitted, including the updated pieces of information. For example, if a reporting company changes its legal name, the reporting company will need to file an updated BOI report to include the new legal name and the previously reported, unchanged information about the company, its beneficial owners, and, if required, its company applicants.

A reporting company that filed its prior BOI report using the fillable PDF version may update its saved copy and resubmit to FinCEN. If a reporting company used FinCEN's web-based application to submit the previous BOI report, it will need to submit a new report in its entirety by either accessing FinCEN's web-based application to complete and file the BOI report, or by using the PDF option to complete the BOI report and upload to the BOI e-Filing application.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topH. 5. Can a filer submit a late updated BOI report?

An updated BOI report can be submitted to FinCEN at any time. However, the reporting company is responsible for ensuring that updates are filed within 30 days of a change occurring. If a reporting company has engaged a third-party service provider to file BOI reports and updates on its behalf, then it should communicate any changes to its beneficial ownership information to the third-party service provider with enough time to meet the 30-day deadline.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topH. 6. If a reporting company last filed a ''newly exempt entity'' BOI report but subsequently loses its exempt status, what should it do?

A reporting company should file an updated BOI report with FinCEN with the company's current beneficial ownership information when it determines it no longer qualifies for an exemption.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topI. Corrected Report

I. 1. What should I do if I learn of an inaccuracy in a report?

If a beneficial ownership information report is inaccurate, your company must correct it no later than 30 days after the date your company became aware of the inaccuracy or had reason to know of it. This includes any inaccuracy in the required information provided about your company, its beneficial owners, or its company applicants. The following infographic sets out the corrected report timelines.

Chapter 6.2, ''What should I do if I learn of an inaccuracy in a report?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information about correcting inaccurate beneficial ownership information reports filed with FinCEN.

[Updated September 29, 2023]

Back to topJ. Newly Exempt Entity Report

J. 1. What should a reporting company do if it becomes exempt after already filing a report?

If a reporting company filed a beneficial ownership information report but then becomes exempt from filing the report, the company should file an updated report indicating that it is no longer a reporting company. An updated BOI report for a newly exempt entity will only require that: (1) the entity identify itself; and (2) check a box noting its newly exempt status. Chapter 6.3, ''What should my company do if it becomes exempt after already filing a report?'' of FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes more information.

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topK. Compliance/Enforcement

K. 1. What happens if a reporting company does not report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN or fails to update or correct the information within the required timeframe?

FinCEN is working hard to ensure that reporting companies are aware of their obligations to report, update, and correct beneficial ownership information. FinCEN understands this is a new requirement. If you correct a mistake or omission within 90 days of the deadline for the original report, you may avoid being penalized. However, you could face civil and criminal penalties if you disregard your beneficial ownership information reporting obligations.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide provides more information about enforcement of the requirement (see Chapter 1.3, ''What happens if my company does not report BOI in the required timeframe?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topK. 2. What penalties do individuals face for violating BOI reporting requirements?

As specified in the Corporate Transparency Act, a person who willfully violates the BOI reporting requirements may be subject to civil penalties of up to $500 for each day that the violation continues. That person may also be subject to criminal penalties of up to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. Potential violations include willfully failing to file a beneficial ownership information report, willfully filing false beneficial ownership information, or willfully failing to correct or update previously reported beneficial ownership information.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topK. 3. Who can be held liable for violating BOI reporting requirements?

Both individuals and corporate entities can be held liable for willful violations. This can include not only an individual who actually files (or attempts to file) false information with FinCEN, but also anyone who willfully provides the filer with false information to report. Both individuals and corporate entities may also be liable for willfully failing to report complete or updated beneficial ownership information; in such circumstances, individuals can be held liable if they either cause the failure or are a senior officer at the company at the time of the failure.

i. Can an individual who files a report on behalf of a reporting company be held liable?Yes. An individual who willfully files a false or fraudulent beneficial ownership information report on a company's behalf may be subject to the same civil and criminal penalties as the reporting company and its senior officers.ii. Can a beneficial owner or company applicant be held liable for refusing to provide required information to a reporting company?Yes. As described above, an enforcement action can be brought against an individual who willfully causes a reporting company's failure to submit complete or updated beneficial ownership information to FinCEN. This would include a beneficial owner or company applicant who willfully fails to provide required information to a reporting company.[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topK. 4. Is a reporting company responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the information that it reports to FinCEN, even if the reporting company obtains that information from another party?

Yes. It is the responsibility of the reporting company to identify its beneficial owners and company applicants, and to report those individuals to FinCEN. At the time the filing is made, each reporting company is required to certify that its report or application is true, correct, and complete. Accordingly, FinCEN expects that reporting companies will take care to verify the information they receive from their beneficial owners and company applicants before reporting it to FinCEN.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topK. 5. What should a reporting company do if a beneficial owner or company applicant withholds information?

While FinCEN recognizes that much of the information required to be reported about beneficial owners and company applicants will be provided to reporting companies by those individuals, reporting companies are responsible for ensuring that they submit complete and accurate beneficial ownership information to FinCEN. Starting January 1, 2024, reporting companies will have a legal requirement to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN.

Existing reporting companies should engage with their beneficial owners to advise them of this requirement, obtain required information, and revise or consider putting in place mechanisms to ensure that beneficial owners will keep reporting companies apprised of changes in reported information, if necessary. Beneficial owners and company applicants should also be aware that they may face penalties if they willfully cause a reporting company to fail to report complete or updated beneficial ownership information.

Persons considering creating or registering legal entities that will be reporting companies should take steps to ensure that they have access to the beneficial ownership information required to be reported to FinCEN, and that they have mechanisms in place to ensure that the reporting company is kept apprised of changes in that information.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topL. Reporting Company Exemptions

L. 1. What are the criteria for the tax-exempt entity exemption from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirement?

An entity qualifies for the tax-exempt entity exemption if any of the following four criteria apply:

(1) The entity is an organization that is described in section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (Code) (determined without regard to section 508(a) of the Code) and exempt from tax under section 501(a) of the Code.(2) The entity is an organization that is described in section 501(c) of the Code, and was exempt from tax under section 501(a) of the Code, but lost its tax-exempt status less than 180 days ago.(3) The entity is a political organization, as defined in section 527(e)(1) of the Code, that is exempt from tax under section 527(a) of the Code.(4) The entity is a trust described in paragraph (1) or (2) of section 4947(a) of the Code.FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes checklists for this exemption (see exemption #19) and for the additional exemptions to the reporting requirements (see Chapter 1.2, ''Is my company exempt from the reporting requirements?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topL. 2. What are the criteria for the inactive entity exemption from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirement?

An entity qualifies for the inactive entity exemption if all six of the following criteria apply:

(1) The entity was in existence on or before January 1, 2020.(2) The entity is not engaged in active business.(3) The entity is not owned by a foreign person, whether directly or indirectly, wholly or partially. ''Foreign person'' means a person who is not a United States person. A United States person is defined in section 7701(a)(30) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as a citizen or resident of the United States, domestic partnership and corporation, and other estates and trusts.(4) The entity has not experienced any change in ownership in the preceding twelve-month period.(5) The entity has not sent or received any funds in an amount greater than $1,000, either directly or through any financial account in which the entity or any affiliate of the entity had an interest, in the preceding twelve-month period.(6) The entity does not otherwise hold any kind or type of assets, whether in the United States or abroad, including any ownership interest in any corporation, limited liability company, or other similar entity.FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes checklists for this exemption (see exemption #23) and for the additional exemptions to the reporting requirements (see Chapter 1.2, ''Is my company exempt from the reporting requirements?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topL. 3. What are the criteria for the subsidiary exemption from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirement?

Subsidiaries of certain types of entities that are exempt from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements may also be exempt from the reporting requirement.

An entity qualifies for the subsidiary exemption if the following applies:

The entity's ownership interests are controlled or wholly owned, directly or indirectly, by any of these types of exempt entities:

Securities reporting issuer;Governmental authority;Bank;Credit union;Depository institution holding company;Broker or dealer in securities;Securities exchange or clearing agency;Other Exchange Act registered entity;Investment company or investment adviser;Venture capital fund adviser;Insurance company;State-licensed insurance producer;Commodity Exchange Act registered entity;Accounting firm;Public utility;Financial market utility;Tax-exempt entity; orLarge operating company.FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes definitions of the exempt entities listed above and a checklist for this exemption (see exemption #22). FinCEN's Guide also includes checklists for the additional exemptions to the reporting requirements (see Chapter 1.2, ''Is my company exempt from the reporting requirements?'').

[Issued September 18, 2023]

Back to topL. 4. If I own a group of related companies, can I consolidate employees across those companies to meet the criteria of a large operating company exemption from the reporting company definition?

No. The large operating company exemption requires that the entity itself employ more than 20 full-time employees in the United States and does not permit consolidation of this employee count across multiple entities.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes a checklist for this exemption (see exemption #21).

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topL. 5. How does a company report to FinCEN that the company is exempt?

A company does not need to report to FinCEN that it is exempt from the BOI reporting requirements if it has always been exempt.

If a company filed a BOI report and later qualifies for an exemption, that company should file an updated BOI report to indicate that it is newly exempt from the reporting requirements. Updated BOI reports are filed electronically though the secure filing system. An updated BOI report for a newly exempt entity will only require that the entity: (1) identify itself; and (2) check a box noting its newly exempt status.

[Issued November 16, 2023]

Back to topM. FinCEN Identifier

M. 1. What is a FinCEN identifier?

A ''FinCEN identifier'' is a unique identifying number that FinCEN will issue to an individual or reporting company upon request after the individual or reporting company provides certain information to FinCEN. An individual or reporting company may only receive one FinCEN identifier.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information on FinCEN identifiers in Chapter 4.3, ''What is a FinCEN identifier and how can I use it?''

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topM. 2. How can I use a FinCEN identifier?

When an individual who is a beneficial owner or company applicant has obtained a FinCEN identifier, reporting companies may report the FinCEN identifier of that individual in the place of that individual's otherwise required personal information on a beneficial ownership information report.

The use of FinCEN identifiers obtained by reporting companies is the subject of ongoing rulemaking. FinCEN anticipates providing additional guidance when that rulemaking is finalized.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topM. 3. How do I request a FinCEN identifier?

Individuals will be able to request a FinCEN identifier on or after January 1, 2024, by completing an electronic web form. Individuals will need to provide their full legal name, date of birth, address, unique identifying number and issuing jurisdiction from an acceptable identification document, and an image of the identification document. After an individual submits this information, the individual will immediately receive a FinCEN identifier unique to that individual.

Reporting companies may request a FinCEN identifier by checking a box on the beneficial ownership information report when they submit the report. After the reporting company submits the report, the reporting company will immediately receive a FinCEN identifier unique to that company. If a reporting company wishes to request a FinCEN identifier after submitting its initial beneficial ownership report, it may submit an updated beneficial ownership information report requesting a FinCEN identifier, even if the company does not otherwise need to update its information.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topM. 4. Are FinCEN identifiers required?

No. An individual or reporting company is not required to obtain a FinCEN identifier.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topM. 5. Do I need to update or correct the information I submitted to obtain a FinCEN identifier?

Yes. Individuals must update or correct information through the FinCEN identifier application that is also used to request a FinCEN identifier.

Individuals must report any change to the information they submitted to obtain a FinCEN identifier no later than 30 days after the date on which the change occurred.If there is any inaccuracy in this information, an individual must correct the information no later than 30 days after the date the individual became aware of the inaccuracy or had reason to know of it.Reporting companies with a FinCEN identifier must update or correct the company's information by filing an updated or corrected beneficial ownership information report, as appropriate.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topM. 6. Is there any way to deactivate an individual's FinCEN identifier that is no longer in use so that the individual no longer has to update the information associated with it?

FinCEN is actively assessing options to allow individuals to deactivate a FinCEN identifier so that they do not need to update the underlying personal information on an ongoing basis. FinCEN will provide additional guidance on this functionality upon completion of that process.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topM. 7. Who can request a FinCEN identifier on behalf of an individual?

Anyone authorized to act on behalf of an individual may request a FinCEN identifier on the individual's behalf on or after January 1, 2024.

FinCEN identifiers for individuals are provided upon request after the requesting party has submitted the necessary information. Obtaining a FinCEN identifier for an individual requires the requesting party to create a Login.gov account, which is tied to the individual receiving the FinCEN identifier. Individuals who receive a FinCEN identifier should ensure their login credentials, including email address and related multi-factor information associated with their Login.gov account, are saved for future reference.

FinCEN's Small Entity Compliance Guide includes additional information on the FinCEN identifier in Chapter 4.3 ''What is a FinCEN identifier and how can I use it?''

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topN. Third-Party Service Providers

N. 1. Can a third-party service provider assist reporting companies by submitting required information to FinCEN on their behalf?

Yes. Reporting companies may use third-party service providers to submit beneficial ownership information reports. Third-party service providers will have the ability to submit the reports via FinCEN's E-Filing system and/or an Application Programming Interface (API). Technical specifications for the API will be made available at a later date.

[Issued September 29, 2023]

Back to topN. 2. What type of evidence will a reporting company receive as confirmation that its BOI report has been successfully filed by a third-party service provider?

The BOI E-Filing application, available beginning January 1, 2024, provides acknowledgement of submission success or failure, and the submitter will be able to download a transcript of the BOI report. The reporting company will need to obtain this confirmation from the third-party service provider.

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to topN. 3. Will a third-party service provider be able to submit multiple BOI reports to FinCEN at the same time?

Yes. Third-party service providers will be able to submit multiple BOI reports through an Application Programming Interface (API).

[Issued December 12, 2023]

Back to top

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 15:55

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekdayYour briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Scientists have warned a ''zombie deer disease'' could spread to humans after hundreds of animals were infected with the illness in the US over the last year.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), which leaves animals drooling, lethargic, stumbling and with a blank stare, has been found in 800 samples of deer, elk and moose across Wyoming.

But experts warned the disease was a ''slow-moving disaster'' and urged governments to prepare for the possibility of it spreading to humans.

''The mad cow disease outbreak in Britain provided an example of how, overnight, things can get crazy when a spillover event happens from, say, livestock to people,'' CWD researcher Dr Cory Anderson told The Guardian.

''We're talking about the potential of something similar occurring. No one is saying that it's definitely going to happen, but it's important for people to be prepared.''

File photo of a Mule deer in Colorado, USA. Up to 800 samples of chronic wasting disease were found in deer, elk and moose

(Getty Images)

In the UK, 4.4m cattle were slaughtered after mad cow disease spread in the 1980s and 1990s due to bovine being fed infected meat and bonemeal.

The disease, which is usually fatal for cattle, infects the central nervous system and leaves the animals with aggressive symptoms and a lack of coordination. Since 1995, 178 human deaths have been attributed to the human variant.

In 2017, 7,000 to 15,000 CWD-infected animals a year were being consumed by humans, according to the Alliance for Public Wildlife.

The figure was expected to rise by 20 per cent annually. In Wisconsin, thousands of people have probably eaten meat from infected deer, Dr Anderson said.

CWD is extremely hard to eradicate once an environment is infected. It can persist for years in dirt or on surfaces, and scientists report it is resistant to disinfectants, formaldehyde, radiation and incineration at 600C (1,100F).

It comes after US biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks warned illnesses transmitted from animals to humans could kill 12 times as many people in 2050 than they did in 2020.

The company said epidemics caused by zoonotic diseases - known as spillovers - could be more frequent in future due to climate change and deforestation.

Between 1963 and 2019, epidemics increased by almost 5 per cent every year, with deaths up by 9 per cent, according to the group's research.

''If these annual rates of increase continue, we would expect the analysed pathogens to cause four times the number of spillover events and 12 times the number of deaths in 2050 than in 2020,'' it warned.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 15:09

A Tesla engineer was attacked by a robot during a brutal and bloody malfunction at the company's Giga Texas factory near Austin.

Two witnesses watched in horror as their fellow employee was attacked by the machine designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminum car parts.

The robot had pinned the man, who was then programming software for two disabled Tesla robots nearby, before sinking its metal claws into the worker's back and arm, leaving a 'trail of blood' along the factory surface.

The incident - which left the victim with an 'open wound' on his left hand - was revealed in a 2021 injury report filed to Travis county and federal regulators, which has been reviewed by DailyMail.com.

While no other robot-related injures were reported to regulators by Tesla at the Texas factory in either 2021 or 2022, the incident comes amid years of heightened concerns over the risks of automated robots in the workplace.

A 2021 official injury report appears to corroborate shocking witness accounts of a Tesla manufacturing robot's brutal attack on an engineer at the company's Giga Texas factory. Tesla must submit the reports to local authorities by law to maintain its lucrative tax breaks in state

Two witnesses watched in horror as a fellow Tesla employee rescued the bloodied engineer from an unwitting, but violent robotic assault '-- perpetrated by an automated assembly device (like these red robot arms above) designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminum car parts

Reports of increased injuries due to robotic coworkers at Amazon shipment centers, killer droid-surgeons, self-driving cars, and even violence from robotic chess instructors, have led some to question speedy integration of the new tech.

The injury report, which Tesla must submit to authorities by law to maintain its lucrative tax breaks in Texas, claimed the engineer did not require time off of work.

But one attorney who represents Tesla's Giga Texas contract workers has told DailyMail.com she believes, based on her conversations with workers there, that the number of injuries suffered at the factory is going underreported.

This underreporting, the attorney said, even included the September 28, 2021 death of a construction worker, who had been contracted to help build the factory itself.

'My advice would be to read that report with a grain of salt,' the attorney, Hannah Alexander of the nonprofit Workers Defense Project, told DailyMail.com.

'We've had multiple workers who were injured,' Alexander said, 'and one worker who died, whose injuries or death are not in these reports that Tesla is supposed to be accurately completing and submitting to the county in order to get tax incentives.'

That construction worker, a contractor named Antelmo Ram­rez, died of heat stroke while helping build Tesla's over 2,000-acre long Giga Texas factory, according to a report from the Travis County medical examiner.

Last year, Workers Defense Project filed a complaint on behalf of workers at the Giga Texas factory (above) with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), alleging Tesla's contractors and subcontractors gave some hires false safety certificates

Last year, Workers Defense Project filed a complaint on behalf of workers at Giga Texas with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), alleging Tesla's contractors and subcontractors gave some hires false safety certificates.

'Workers report that when they needed training, they were simply sent PDF files or images of certificates through text or WhatsApp in a matter of days,' Alexander told local NBC affiliate KXAN. 'There's no conceivable way workers could have even taken the training required.'

Alexander's allegations on underreported workplace injuries at the Tesla site, if accurate, would follow a trend of similar findings by state regulators and investigative journalism nonprofits over the years.

A report by the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal team found that the company had misclassified a number of on-the-job accidents and injuries as 'personal medical' cases to evade state regulators

California OSHA investigators, for example, found that Tesla had left out 36 injuries in its required government filings in 2018 alone '-- confirming a prior report by the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal team, which found that the company had misclassified a number of on-the-job accidents and injuries as 'personal medical' cases to evade California regulators.

Prior to California OSHA's findings, Tesla had stated that Reveal's claims were 'completely false,' and accused the group of secretly collaborating with laborers who were then attempting to unionize the automaker's California plant.

A copy of Tesla's 2021 Annual Compliance Report for Giga Texas, however, does at least document the software engineer's bloody robot attack, albeit in slim detail.

The scant November 10, 2021, entry describes how a 'laceration, cut, open wound' was inflicted on an 'engineer' for which the 'cause object' was a 'robot.'

According to Tesla, the engineer's wounds, which were inflicted on his left hand, required 'zero' days off from work for recovery.

The two eyewitnesses to the event '-- which occurred in the section of the Texas factory floor where vehicle chassis are first assembled '-- told reporters for The Information a more harrowing story, however.

As the bleeding Tesla engineer attempted to wrestle free from the assembly robot's grasp, another worker hit an emergency 'stop' button to end the attack.

A scant November 10, 2021 entry on Tesla's Form 300 report to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) records a 'laceration, cut, open wound' inflicted on an 'engineer' for which, per the entry, the 'cause object' was a 'robot'

As the Tesla engineer attempted to wrestle free from the robot's grasp, eyewitnesses saw another worker hit an emergency 'stop' button. Once free, the engineer fell 'a couple of feet down a chute designed to collect scrap aluminum, leaving a trail of blood behind him'

Musk (left) celebrates at his 'Cyber Rodeo,' the grand opening party for the Giga Texas manufacturing facility held on April 7, 2022. A Tesla Bot (right) on display at the Cyber Rodeo

Once free, the engineer fell ' a couple of feet down a chute designed to collect scrap aluminum, leaving a trail of blood behind him,' according to The Information, a subscription-based tech news site.

The incident highlights a larger trend told in Tesla's self-reported data on injuries to government authorities: Tesla's Giga Texas plant outpaces the rest of the auto industry both in total accidents and accidents serious enough to require time off.

A ratio of nearly one out of every 21 workers at Tesla's Giga Texas factory was injured on the job in 2022, according to a review by The Information, compared to an industry median rate of one in every 30 workers.

Based on Tesla's own reporting to OSHA, Giga Texas outpaces the rest of the auto industry both in total accidents and accidents serious enough to require time off

For more severe on-the-job injuries, that ratio came out to roughly one in every 26 workers at Tesla's Texas factory, per 2022 filing data on injuries that led to either missed days of work or transfers to other job duties.

For comparison, the median rate at which such injuries occur at other large US auto factories amounted to one in every 38 workers.

To correct and compensate for scale, only US auto plants with 250 workers or more were compared to Tesla's massive Giga Texas plant for the news site's analysis of this data '-- which had been delivered by Tesla itself to OSHA via mandatory Form 300 reports.

According to sources who spoke to The Information, the rapid two-year construction of the Giga Texas facility added to the lax safety and increased injuries.

Tesla fan or 'insight' blogs, like Tesmanian, called it 'Elon Speed' at the time, boasting that 'Tesla has approved three crew shifts to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.'

'Now the construction is actually going on without interruption,' the site explained, 'and will be completed much faster than expected.'

Tesla's self-reported worker injuries run the gamut from blunt force trauma to chemical exposures to machine accidents that left some laborers recuperating for months at a time.

Tesla's OSHA reports include sprains, cuts and fractures from workers getting caught on machines, as well as sicknesses stemming from contact with toxins like ammonia.

One production associate was unable to work for 127 days (over four months) after their ankle was caught by a moving cart in August 2022.

Soon after, a material handler was struck in the head by a metal object, leaving an injury that took 85 days to recuperate from, according to OSHA's records.

A ratio of nearly one out of every 21 workers at Tesla's Giga Texas factory was injured on the job in 2022, according to a review by The Information, compared to an industry median rate of one in every 30 workers

While news coverage and Tesla's own press materials frequently describe the factory as being based in Austin, the Giga factory is more accurately located in a nearby 'unincorporated' area known as Del Valle. Tesla scored over $60 million in tax breaks for choosing the location

While news coverage and Tesla's own press materials frequently describe the factory as being based in Austin, the Giga factory is more accurately located in a nearby 'unincorporated' area known as Del Valle in that same county.

According to Bloomberg, Tesla scored over $60 million in tax breaks from Travis County and the Del Valle Independent School District for choosing the location.

But those tax incentives were intended to come with strict requirements that Musk's company might not be following, according to Alexander, the attorney with the Workers Defense Project.

'There is this requirement that Tesla compile a compliance report every year for the purposes of this 'economic development' incentive agreement,' Alexander told DailyMail.com via phone.

'What I've found '-- with a lot of the construction workers I've talked to, who've had injuries '-- is that their injuries haven't been in the report,' Alexander said.

'Like the worker who died, Antelmo Ram­rez, his death was not recorded,' the Austin-based attorney continued, 'and the agreement between the county [Travis County] and Tesla '-- or with, you know, the Colorado River Project, LLC, the entity that Tesla was 'doing business as' here '-- was very clear.'

'They're supposed to report every construction worker injury or death, and not just the injuries and deaths of people directly employed by Tesla, but any construction worker that was operating on the site.'

But those tax incentives were intended to come with strict requirements that Musk's company might not be following, according to Hannah Alexander, an attorney with the Workers Defense Project. The exact language appears on page 12 of the July 14th, 2020 agreement (above)

Due, in part, to Giga Texas's sprawling size '-- over 10 million square-feet of floor space or nearly 100 football fields in total area '-- the company decided to put portions of the factory into operation while the rest was still being built. Some argue this policy increased injuries

The exact language on this issue appears on page 12 of the July 14th, 2020 agreement now available to the public on the Tavis County website.

'Company [Tesla] shall provide a report to the County on an annual basis by March 31 [2021] specifying the number of injuries and deaths, if any, that may have occurred in the performance of the construction of the Colorado River Project [Tesla's Giga factory],' the agreement reads.

But, while Tesla might be an outlier in terms of injuries within the automotive industry, the company is right at home in the Lone Star state, which ranks as the most deadly place to be a construction worker in the US.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, construction workers in Texas were 22-percent more likely to die on the job in Texas than anywhere else in the country.

'A construction worker dies every three days in Texas,' Alexander told DailyMail.com.

'The impetus for Tesla coming to Texas, based on other reporting, was that the company was not pleased with having the health and safety protections that California had at the time,' she said.

Those reports, including coverage in the Dallas Morning News, suggested that Musk moved Tesla's headquarters and manufacturing 'after becoming frustrated with restrictions in California during the COVID-19 pandemic.'

Due, in part, to the Giga Texas's sprawling size '-- over 10 million square-feet of floor space or nearly 100 football fields in total area '-- the company decided to put portions of the factory into operation while the rest was still being built.

'They continued to construct other parts of it as it was starting to operate,' according to Alexander, 'as early as April 2022, that's whenever Mr. Musk put on the cowboy hat and had the Cyber Rodeo there.'

This, the attorney argues, may have contributed to the factory workers' above-average injury rates.

DailyMail.com has reached out for comment to Tesla, which dissolved its US media relations team in October 2020.

This article will be amended if the company responds.

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Thu, 28 Dec 2023 15:07

by Fatima John-Sandoz / 13 December, 2023 / Event

We're looking forward to being back at the SDG Tent in snowcapped Davos in just one month! The 54th World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting will reconvene under the theme of Rebuilding Trust, from 15-19 January 2024.

For nearly 20 years, the SDG Tent and its predecessor, the World Food'¯Programme Tent, have brought business, civil society,'¯and the public sector together to promote sustainability and the role of business in society.'¯The tent has since become a principal side event during WEF, providing a welcoming space for discourse outside of the security zone.

As the SDG Tent's official communications partner, Leidar supports with building the Tent's programme and handling communications. We also help organizations and CEOs to strengthen and amplify their presence on the ground in Davos.

Over the last three years, we have hosted our own events at the tent, discussing how business can navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues and build trust with stakeholders.

As the SDG Tent's official communications partner, Leidar supports with building the Tent's programme and handling communications.

Over the course of 2023, the issue of trust has become increasingly prevalent. A year ago, WEF explored the notion of resilience amidst polycrisis, since then new geopolitical fractures have overshadowed existing ones, and the cost-of-living crisis continues to rise while global food and energy security becomes more precarious.

In a rapidly evolving landscape these exponentially occurring issues receive less and less bandwidth as one crisis replaces the next in the public eye. Can we steer away from this state of 'permacrisis' and towards a time of resolution?

Through the SDG Tent we have seen the enormous potential that is generated when such a diverse group of people come together to seek concrete solutions to the world's most pressing problems. Now that Davos is adopting a 'back to basics' approach for constructive conversations that would achieve security for a fragmented world, we've decided to embrace the spirit of cooperation.

Leidar will be hosting a panel discussion on Wednesday, January 17th from 5:30-7pm. We hope to see you there!Join us and make the difference we need going forward. Fatima John-Sandoz Head of Geneva Team, based in Geneva

Fatima joined Leidar in 2019 and heads up the Geneva team. In her role, she helps a range of companies and organizations respond to global challenges.

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Thu, 28 Dec 2023 15:01

The Civil War grew out of longstanding tensions and disagreements about American life and politics. For more than 80 years, people in the Northern and Southern states had been debating the issues that ultimately led to war: economic policies and practices, cultural values, the extent and reach of the Federal government, and, most importantly, the role of slavery within American society.Against the backdrop of these larger issues, individual soldiers had their own reasons for fighting. Their motivations often included a complex mix of personal, social, economic and political values that didn't necessarily match the aims expressed by their respective governments.

Last updated: April 23, 2015

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1861''1865 conflict in the United States

American Civil War Clockwise from top: Belligerents United States Confederate States Commanders and leaders Abraham Lincoln X Ulysses S. Grant and others... Jefferson Davis Robert E. Lee and others...Strength2,200,000[b]698,000 (peak)[3][4]750,000''1,000,000[b]360,000 (peak)[3][6]Casualties and lossesTotal: 828,000+ casualtiesTotal: 864,000+ casualties50,000 free civilians dead[10]80,000+ slaves dead (disease)[11]Total: 616,222[12]''1,000,000+ dead[13][14]The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 '' May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union[e] ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which had been formed by states that had seceded from the Union. The cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.

Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the western territories. Seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Four more southern states seceded after the war began and, led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy asserted control over about a third of the U.S. population in eleven states. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued.

During 1861''1862 in the Western Theater, the Union made significant permanent gains'--though in the Eastern Theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, which applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and later seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to General Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month Siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but on April 14, he was assassinated.

While the conclusion of the American Civil War arguably has several different dates, Appomattox is often referred to symbolically. It set off a wave of Confederate surrenders. On May 26, the last military department of the Confederacy, the Department of the Trans-Mississippi disbanded. A few small confederate ground forces continued formal surrenders through June 23. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves.

The Civil War is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in U.S. history. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of particular interest is the persisting myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The American Civil War was among the first wars to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were all widely used during the war. In total, the war left between 620,000 and 750,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian casualties, making the Civil War the deadliest military conflict in American history.[f] The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming World Wars.

Causes of secession Status of the states, 1861

Slave states that seceded before April 15, 1861

Slave states that seceded after April 15, 1861

Border Southern states that permitted slavery but did not secede (both KY and MO had dual competing Confederate and Unionist governments)

Union states that banned slavery

Territories

The reasons for the Southern states' decisions to secede have been historically controversial, but most scholars today identify preserving slavery as the central reason, in large part because the seceding states' secession documents say that it was. Although some historical revisionists have offered additional reasons for the war,[15] slavery was the central source of escalating political tensions in the 1850s.[16] The Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery to the territories, which, after they were admitted as free states, would give the free states greater representation in Congress and the Electoral College. Many Southern leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election. After Lincoln won, many Southern leaders felt that disunion was their only option, fearing that the loss of representation would hamper their ability to enact pro-slavery laws and policies.[17][18] In his second inaugural address, Lincoln said that:

slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.[19]

Slavery Disagreements among states about the future of slavery were the main cause of disunion and the war that followed.[20] Slavery had been controversial during the framing of the Constitution, which, because of compromises, ended up with proslavery and antislavery features.[22] The issue of slavery had confounded the nation since its inception and increasingly separated the United States into a slaveholding South and a free North. The issue was exacerbated by the rapid territorial expansion of the country, which repeatedly brought to the fore the question of whether new territory should be slaveholding or free. The issue had dominated politics for decades leading up to the war. Key attempts to resolve the matter included the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, but these only postponed the showdown over slavery that would lead to the Civil War.

The motivations of the average person were not necessarily those of their faction;[24][25] some Northern soldiers were indifferent on the subject of slavery, but a general pattern can be established.[26] As the war dragged on, more and more Unionists came to support the abolition of slavery, whether on moral grounds or as a means to cripple the Confederacy.[27] Confederate soldiers fought the war primarily to protect a Southern society of which slavery was an integral part.[28][29] Opponents of slavery considered slavery an anachronistic evil incompatible with republicanism. The strategy of the anti-slavery forces was containment'--to stop the expansion of slavery and thereby put it on a path to ultimate extinction. The slaveholding interests in the South denounced this strategy as infringing upon their constitutional rights. Southern whites believed that the emancipation of slaves would destroy the South's economy, because of the large amount of capital invested in slaves and fears of integrating the ex-slave black population.[32] In particular, many Southerners feared a repeat of the 1804 Haiti massacre (referred to at the time as "the horrors of Santo Domingo"),[33][34] in which former slaves systematically murdered most of what was left of the country's white population'--including men, women, children, and even many sympathetic to abolition'--after the successful slave revolt in Haiti. Historian Thomas Fleming points to the historical phrase "a disease in the public mind" used by critics of this idea and proposes it contributed to the segregation in the Jim Crow era following emancipation.[35] These fears were exacerbated by the 1859 attempt of John Brown to instigate an armed slave rebellion in the South.

Abolitionists Uncle Tom's Cabin, authored by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852, helped enlighten the public to slavery's evil and contributed to increased American opposition to it. According to an apocryphal story, when Lincoln was introduced to Stowe at the White House, his first words were, "So this is the little lady who started this Great War."[37][38]The abolitionists'--those advocating the end of slavery'--were active in the decades leading up to the Civil War. They traced their philosophical roots back to Puritans, who believed that slavery was morally wrong. One of the early Puritan writings on this subject was The Selling of Joseph, by Samuel Sewall in 1700. In it, Sewall condemned slavery and the slave trade and refuted many of the era's typical justifications for slavery.[39][40]

The American Revolution and the cause of liberty added tremendous impetus to the abolitionist cause. Even in Southern states, laws were changed to limit slavery and facilitate manumission. The amount of indentured servitude dropped dramatically throughout the country. An Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves sailed through Congress with little opposition. President Thomas Jefferson supported it, and it went into effect on January 1, 1808, which was the first day that the Constitution (Article I, section 9, clause 1) permitted Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves. Benjamin Franklin and James Madison each helped found manumission societies. Influenced by the American Revolution, many slave owners freed their slaves, but some, such as George Washington, did so only in their wills. The number of free black people as a proportion of the black population in the upper South increased from less than one percent to nearly 10 percent between 1790 and 1810 as a result of these actions.[41][42][43][44][45][46]

The establishment of the Northwest Territory as "free soil"'--no slavery'--by Manasseh Cutler and Rufus Putnam (who both came from Puritan New England) would also prove crucial. This territory (which became the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota) doubled the size of the United States.[47][48][40]

Frederick Douglass, a former slave, was a leading abolitionistIn the decades leading up to the Civil War, abolitionists, such as Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Frederick Douglass, repeatedly used the Puritan heritage of the country to bolster their cause. The most radical anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, invoked the Puritans and Puritan values over a thousand times. Parker, in urging New England congressmen to support the abolition of slavery, wrote, "The son of the Puritan ... is sent to Congress to stand up for Truth and Right."[49][50] Literature served as a means to spread the message to common folks. Key works included Twelve Years a Slave, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, American Slavery as It Is, and the most important: Uncle Tom's Cabin, the best-selling book of the 19th century aside from the Bible.[51][53]

A more unusual abolitionist than those named above was Hinton Rowan Helper, whose 1857 book, The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It, "[e]ven more perhaps than Uncle Tom's Cabin ... fed the fires of sectional controversy leading up to the Civil War."[54] A Southerner and a virulent racist, Helper was nevertheless an abolitionist because he believed, and showed with statistics, that slavery "impeded the progress and prosperity of the South, ... dwindled our commerce, and other similar pursuits, into the most contemptible insignificance; sunk a large majority of our people in galling poverty and ignorance, ... [and] entailed upon us a humiliating dependence on the Free States...."[55]

By 1840 more than 15,000 people were members of abolitionist societies in the United States. Abolitionism in the United States became a popular expression of moralism, and led directly to the Civil War. In churches, conventions and newspapers, reformers promoted an absolute and immediate rejection of slavery.[56][57] Support for abolition among the religious was not universal though. As the war approached, even the main denominations split along political lines, forming rival Southern and Northern churches. For example, in 1845 the Baptists split into the Northern Baptists and Southern Baptists over the issue of slavery.[59]

Abolitionist sentiment was not strictly religious or moral in origin. The Whig Party became increasingly opposed to slavery because it saw it as inherently against the ideals of capitalism and the free market. Whig leader William H. Seward (who would serve as Lincoln's secretary of state) proclaimed that there was an "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and free labor, and that slavery had left the South backward and undeveloped. As the Whig party dissolved in the 1850s, the mantle of abolition fell to its newly formed successor, the Republican Party.

Territorial crisis Manifest destiny heightened the conflict over slavery. Each new territory acquired had to face the thorny question of whether to allow or disallow the "peculiar institution". Between 1803 and 1854, the United States achieved a vast expansion of territory through purchase, negotiation, and conquest. At first, the new states carved out of these territories entering the union were apportioned equally between slave and free states. Pro- and anti-slavery forces collided over the territories west of the Mississippi River.

The Mexican''American War and its aftermath was a key territorial event in the leadup to the war. As the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo finalized the conquest of northern Mexico west to California in 1848, slaveholding interests looked forward to expanding into these lands and perhaps Cuba and Central America as well. Prophetically, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that "Mexico will poison us", referring to the ensuing divisions around whether the newly conquered lands would end up slave or free. Northern free-soil interests vigorously sought to curtail any further expansion of slave territory. The Compromise of 1850 over California balanced a free-soil state with a stronger federal fugitive slave law for a political settlement after four years of strife in the 1840s. But the states admitted following California were all free: Minnesota (1858), Oregon (1859), and Kansas (1861). In the Southern states, the question of the territorial expansion of slavery westward again became explosive. Both the South and the North drew the same conclusion: "The power to decide the question of slavery for the territories was the power to determine the future of slavery itself." Soon after the Utah Territory legalized slavery in 1852, the Utah War of 1857 saw Mormon settlers in the Utah territory fighting the US government.[71][72]

By 1860, four doctrines had emerged to answer the question of federal control in the territories, and they all claimed they were sanctioned by the Constitution, implicitly or explicitly. The first of these theories, represented by the Constitutional Union Party, argued that the Missouri Compromise apportionment of territory north for free soil and south for slavery should become a constitutional mandate. The failed Crittenden Compromise of 1860 was an expression of this view.

The second doctrine of congressional preeminence was championed by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party. It insisted that the Constitution did not bind legislators to a policy of balance'--that slavery could be excluded in a territory, as it was in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, at the discretion of Congress. Thus Congress could restrict human bondage, but never establish it. The ill-fated Wilmot Proviso announced this position in 1846.[76] The Proviso was a pivotal moment in national politics, as it was the first time slavery had become a major congressional issue based on sectionalism, instead of party lines. Its support by Northern Democrats and Whigs, and opposition by Southerners, was a dark omen of coming divisions.

Senator Stephen A. Douglas proclaimed the third doctrine: territorial or "popular" sovereignty, which asserted that the settlers in a territory had the same rights as states in the Union to allow or disallow slavery as a purely local matter. The Kansas''Nebraska Act of 1854 legislated this doctrine. In the Kansas Territory, political conflict spawned "Bleeding Kansas", a five-year paramilitary conflict between pro- and anti-slavery supporters. The U.S. House of Representatives voted to admit Kansas as a free state in early 1860, but its admission did not pass the Senate until January 1861, after the departure of Southern senators.[80]

The fourth doctrine was advocated by Mississippi Senator (and soon to be Confederate President) Jefferson Davis. It was one of state sovereignty ("states' rights"), also known as the "Calhoun doctrine", named after the South Carolinian political theorist and statesman John C. Calhoun. Rejecting the arguments for federal authority or self-government, state sovereignty would empower states to promote the expansion of slavery as part of the federal union under the U.S. Constitution. These four doctrines comprised the dominant ideologies presented to the American public on the matters of slavery, the territories, and the U.S. Constitution before the 1860 presidential election.

States' rights A long-running dispute over the origin of the Civil War is to what extent states' rights triggered the conflict. The consensus among historians is that the Civil War was not fought about states' rights.[87][88][89] But the issue is frequently referenced in popular accounts of the war and has much traction among Southerners. Southerners advocating secession argued that just as each state had decided to join the Union, a state had the right to secede'--leave the Union'--at any time. Northerners (including pro-slavery President Buchanan) rejected that notion as opposed to the will of the Founding Fathers, who said they were setting up a perpetual union.[91]

Historian James McPherson points out that even if Confederates genuinely fought over states' rights, it boiled down to states' right to slavery. McPherson writes concerning states' rights and other non-slavery explanations:

While one or more of these interpretations remain popular among the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other Southern heritage groups, few professional historians now subscribe to them. Of all these interpretations, the states'-rights argument is perhaps the weakest. It fails to ask the question, states' rights for what purpose? States' rights, or sovereignty, was always more a means than an end, an instrument to achieve a certain goal more than a principle.

States' rights was an ideology formulated and applied as a means of advancing slave state interests through federal authority. As historian Thomas L. Krannawitter points out, the "Southern demand for federal slave protection represented a demand for an unprecedented expansion of Federal power."[94] Before the Civil War, slavery advocates supported the use of federal powers to enforce and extend slavery, as with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.[95][96] The faction that pushed for secession often infringed on states' rights. Because of the overrepresentation of pro-slavery factions in the federal government, many Northerners, even non-abolitionists, feared the Slave Power conspiracy.[95][96] Some Northern states resisted the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Historian Eric Foner states that the act "could hardly have been designed to arouse greater opposition in the North. It overrode numerous state and local laws and legal procedures and 'commanded' individual citizens to assist, when called upon, in capturing runaways." He continues, "It certainly did not reveal, on the part of slaveholders, sensitivity to states' rights."[88] According to historian Paul Finkelman, "the southern states mostly complained that the northern states were asserting their states' rights and that the national government was not powerful enough to counter these northern claims."[89] The Confederate Constitution also "federally" required slavery to be legal in all Confederate states and claimed territories.[87][97]

Sectionalism Ambrotype of two unidentified young boys, one in blue Union cap, one in gray Confederate cap (Liljenquist collection, Library of Congress)Sectionalism resulted from the different economies, social structure, customs, and political values of the North and South.[98][99] Regional tensions came to a head during the War of 1812, resulting in the Hartford Convention, which manifested Northern dissatisfaction with a foreign trade embargo that affected the industrial North disproportionately, the Three-Fifths Compromise, dilution of Northern power by new states, and a succession of Southern presidents. Sectionalism increased steadily between 1800 and 1860 as the North, which phased slavery out of existence, industrialized, urbanized, and built prosperous farms, while the deep South concentrated on plantation agriculture based on slave labor, together with subsistence agriculture for poor whites. In the 1840s and 1850s, the issue of accepting slavery (in the guise of rejecting slave-owning bishops and missionaries) split the nation's largest religious denominations (the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches) into separate Northern and Southern denominations.

Historians have debated whether economic differences between the mainly industrial North and the mainly agricultural South helped cause the war. Most historians now disagree with the economic determinism of historian Charles A. Beard in the 1920s, and emphasize that Northern and Southern economies were largely complementary. While socially different, the sections economically benefited each other.[101]

Protectionism Owners of slaves preferred low-cost manual labor with no mechanization. Northern manufacturing interests supported tariffs and protectionism while Southern planters demanded free trade. The Democrats in Congress, controlled by Southerners, wrote the tariff laws in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, and kept reducing rates so that the 1857 rates were the lowest since 1816. The Republicans called for an increase in tariffs in the 1860 election. The increases were only enacted in 1861 after Southerners resigned their seats in Congress.[104] The tariff issue was a Northern grievance. However, neo-Confederate writers have claimed it as a Southern grievance. In 1860''61 none of the groups that proposed compromises to head off secession raised the tariff issue.[106] Pamphleteers from the North and the South rarely mentioned the tariff.[107]

Nationalism and honor Marais des Cygnes massacre of anti-slavery Kansans, May 19, 1858Nationalism was a powerful force in the early 19th century, with famous spokesmen such as Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster. While practically all Northerners supported the Union, Southerners were split between those loyal to the entirety of the United States (called "Southern Unionists") and those loyal primarily to the Southern region and then the Confederacy.

Perceived insults to Southern collective honor included the enormous popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin and abolitionist John Brown's attempt to incite a slave rebellion in 1859.[109][110]

While the South moved towards a Southern nationalism, leaders in the North were also becoming more nationally minded, and they rejected any notion of splitting the Union. The Republican national electoral platform of 1860 warned that Republicans regarded disunion as treason and would not tolerate it.[111] The South ignored the warnings; Southerners did not realize how ardently the North would fight to hold the Union together.[112]

Lincoln's election Mathew Brady's Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1860The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for secession. Southern leaders feared that Lincoln would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. However, Lincoln would not be inaugurated until five months after the election, which gave the South time to secede and prepare for war in the winter and spring of 1861.[115]

According to Lincoln, the American people had shown that they had been successful in establishing and administering a republic, but a third challenge faced the nation: maintaining a republic based on the people's vote, in the face of an attempt to destroy it.[116]

Outbreak of the war Secession crisis The election of Lincoln provoked the legislature of South Carolina to call a state convention to consider secession. Before the war, South Carolina did more than any other Southern state to advance the notion that a state had the right to nullify federal laws, and even to secede from the United States. The convention unanimously voted to secede on December 20, 1860, and adopted a secession declaration. It argued for states' rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states' rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution. The "cotton states" of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit, seceding in January and February 1861.[117]

The first published imprint of secession, a broadside issued by the Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860Among the ordinances of secession passed by the individual states, those of three'--Texas, Alabama, and Virginia'--specifically mentioned the plight of the "slaveholding states" at the hands of Northern abolitionists. The rest make no mention of the slavery issue and are often brief announcements of the dissolution of ties by the legislatures.[118] However, at least four states'--South Carolina,[119] Mississippi,[120] Georgia,[121] and Texas[122]'--also passed lengthy and detailed explanations of their reasons for secession, all of which laid the blame squarely on the movement to abolish slavery and that movement's influence over the politics of the Northern states. The Southern states believed slaveholding was a constitutional right because of the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution. These states agreed to form a new federal government, the Confederate States of America, on February 4, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries with little resistance from outgoing President James Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4, 1861. Buchanan said that the Dred Scott decision was proof that the South had no reason for secession, and that the Union "was intended to be perpetual", but that "The power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union" was not among the "enumerated powers granted to Congress".[124] One-quarter of the U.S. Army'--the entire garrison in Texas'--was surrendered in February 1861 to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.

As Southerners resigned their seats in the Senate and the House, Republicans were able to pass projects that had been blocked by Southern senators before the war. These included the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges (the Morrill Act), a Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad (the Pacific Railroad Acts),[126] the National Bank Act, the authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862, and the ending of slavery in the District of Columbia. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced the income tax to help finance the war.[127]

In December 1860, the Crittenden Compromise was proposed to re-establish the Missouri Compromise line by constitutionally banning slavery in territories to the north of the line while guaranteeing it to the south. The adoption of this compromise likely would have prevented the secession of the Southern states, but Lincoln and the Republicans rejected it. Lincoln stated that any compromise that would extend slavery would in time bring down the Union. A pre-war February Peace Conference of 1861 met in Washington, proposing a solution similar to that of the Crittenden compromise; it was rejected by Congress. The Republicans proposed an alternative compromise to not interfere with slavery where it existed but the South regarded it as insufficient. Nonetheless, the remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy following a two-to-one no-vote in Virginia's First Secessionist Convention on April 4, 1861.

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America (1861''1865)On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession "legally void".[131] He had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but said that he would use force to maintain possession of federal property,[131] including forts, arsenals, mints, and customhouses that had been seized by the Southern states. The government would make no move to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where popular conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of federal law, U.S. marshals and judges would be withdrawn. No mention was made of bullion lost from U.S. mints in Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina. He stated that it would be U.S. policy to only collect import duties at its ports; there could be no serious injury to the South to justify the armed revolution during his administration. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, famously calling on "the mystic chords of memory" binding the two regions.[131]

The Davis government of the new Confederacy sent three delegates to Washington to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States of America. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with Confederate agents because he claimed the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government. Lincoln instead attempted to negotiate directly with the governors of individual seceded states, whose administrations he continued to recognize.[134]

Complicating Lincoln's attempts to defuse the crisis were the actions of the new Secretary of State, William Seward. Seward had been Lincoln's main rival for the Republican presidential nomination. Shocked and embittered by this defeat, Seward agreed to support Lincoln's candidacy only after he was guaranteed the executive office that was considered at that time to be the most powerful and important after the presidency itself. Even in the early stages of Lincoln's presidency Seward still held little regard for the new chief executive due to his perceived inexperience, and therefore Seward viewed himself as the de facto head of government or "prime minister" behind the throne of Lincoln. In this role, Seward attempted to engage in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed. However, President Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy: Fort Monroe in Virginia, Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor in Florida, and Fort Sumter in South Carolina.[135][citation needed ]

Battle of Fort Sumter The Battle of Fort Sumter, as depicted by Currier and IvesThe American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on the Union-held Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is located in the middle of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Its status had been contentious for months. Outgoing President Buchanan had dithered in reinforcing the Union garrison in the harbor, which was under command of Major Robert Anderson. Anderson took matters into his own hands and on December 26, 1860, under the cover of darkness, sailed the garrison from the poorly placed Fort Moultrie to the stalwart island Fort Sumter. Anderson's actions catapulted him to hero status in the North. An attempt to resupply the fort on January 9, 1861, failed and nearly started the war then and there. But an informal truce held. On March 5, the newly sworn in Lincoln was informed that the Fort was running low on supplies.

Fort Sumter proved to be one of the main challenges of the new Lincoln administration. Back-channel dealing by Secretary of State Seward with the Confederates undermined Lincoln's decision-making; Seward wanted to pull out of the fort. But a firm hand by Lincoln tamed Seward, and Seward became one of Lincoln's staunchest allies. Lincoln ultimately decided that holding the fort, which would require reinforcing it, was the only workable option. Thus, on April 6, Lincoln informed the Governor of South Carolina that a ship with food but no ammunition would attempt to supply the Fort. Historian McPherson describes this win-win approach as "the first sign of the mastery that would mark Lincoln's presidency"; the Union would win if it could resupply and hold onto the Fort, and the South would be the aggressor if it opened fire on an unarmed ship supplying starving men. An April 9 Confederate cabinet meeting resulted in President Davis's ordering General P. G. T. Beauregard to take the Fort before supplies could reach it.

At 4:30 am on April 12, Confederate forces fired the first of 4,000 shells at the Fort; it fell the next day. The loss of Fort Sumter lit a patriotic fire under the North. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to field 75,000 volunteer troops for 90 days; impassioned Union states met the quotas quickly. On May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,000 volunteers for a period of three years.[145] Shortly after this, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina seceded and joined the Confederacy. To reward Virginia, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond.

Attitude of the border states US Secession map. The Union vs. the Confederacy. Union states

Union territories not permitting slavery

(One of these states, West Virginia, was created in 1863, while KY and MO had dual competing Confederate and Unionist governments) Confederate states

Union territories that permitted slavery (claimed by Confederacy) at the start of the war, but where slavery was outlawed by the U.S. in 1862

Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky were slave states whose people had divided loyalties to Northern and Southern businesses and family members. Some men enlisted in the Union Army and others in the Confederate Army. West Virginia separated from Virginia and was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863.

Maryland's territory surrounded the United States' capital of Washington, D.C., and could cut it off from the North.[150] It had numerous anti-Lincoln officials who tolerated anti-army rioting in Baltimore and the burning of bridges, both aimed at hindering the passage of troops to the South. Maryland's legislature voted overwhelmingly (53''13) to stay in the Union, but also rejected hostilities with its southern neighbors, voting to close Maryland's rail lines to prevent them from being used for war.[151] Lincoln responded by establishing martial law and unilaterally suspending habeas corpus in Maryland, along with sending in militia units from the North. Lincoln rapidly took control of Maryland and the District of Columbia by seizing many prominent figures, including arresting 1/3 of the members of the Maryland General Assembly on the day it reconvened.[151][153] All were held without trial, with Lincoln ignoring a ruling on June 1, 1861, by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, not speaking for the Court,[154] that only Congress (and not the president) could suspend habeas corpus (Ex parte Merryman). Federal troops imprisoned a prominent Baltimore newspaper editor, Frank Key Howard, Francis Scott Key's grandson, after he criticized Lincoln in an editorial for ignoring Taney's ruling.[155]

In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted decisively to remain within the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and the rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of the state (see also: Missouri secession). Early in the war the Confederacy controlled the southern portion of Missouri through the Confederate government of Missouri but was largely driven out of the state after 1862. In the resulting vacuum, the convention on secession reconvened and took power as the Unionist provisional government of Missouri.[156]

Kentucky did not secede; for a time, it declared itself neutral. When Confederate forces entered the state in September 1861, neutrality ended and the state reaffirmed its Union status while maintaining slavery. During a brief invasion by Confederate forces in 1861, Confederate sympathizers and delegates from 68 Kentucky counties organized a secession convention at the Russellville Convention, formed the shadow Confederate Government of Kentucky, inaugurated a governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy and Kentucky was formally admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861. Its jurisdiction extended only as far as Confederate battle lines in the Commonwealth which at its greatest extent was over half the state, and it went into exile after October 1862.[157]

After Virginia's secession, a Unionist government in Wheeling asked 48 counties to vote on an ordinance to create a new state on October 24, 1861. A voter turnout of 34 percent approved the statehood bill (96 percent approving).[158] Twenty-four secessionist counties were included in the new state,[159] and the ensuing guerrilla war engaged about 40,000 federal troops for much of the war. Congress admitted West Virginia to the Union on June 20, 1863. West Virginia provided about 20,000''22,000 soldiers to both the Confederacy and the Union.[162]

A Unionist secession attempt occurred in East Tennessee, but was suppressed by the Confederacy, which arrested over 3,000 men suspected of being loyal to the Union. They were held without trial.

War The Civil War was a contest marked by the ferocity and frequency of battle. Over four years, 237 named battles were fought, as were many more minor actions and skirmishes, which were often characterized by their bitter intensity and high casualties. In his book The American Civil War, British historian John Keegan writes that "The American Civil War was to prove one of the most ferocious wars ever fought". In many cases, without geographic objectives, the only target for each side was the enemy's soldier.[164]

Mobilization As the first seven states began organizing a Confederacy in Montgomery, the entire U.S. army numbered 16,000. However, Northern governors had begun to mobilize their militias.[165] The Confederate Congress authorized the new nation up to 100,000 troops sent by governors as early as February. By May, Jefferson Davis was pushing for 100,000 soldiers for one year or the duration, and that was answered in kind by the U.S. Congress.[166][167][168]

In the first year of the war, both sides had far more volunteers than they could effectively train and equip. After the initial enthusiasm faded, reliance on the cohort of young men who came of age every year and wanted to join was not enough. Both sides used a draft law'--conscription'--as a device to encourage or force volunteering; relatively few were drafted and served. The Confederacy passed a draft law in April 1862 for young men aged 18 to 35; overseers of slaves, government officials, and clergymen were exempt. The U.S. Congress followed in July, authorizing a militia draft within a state when it could not meet its quota with volunteers. European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 born in Ireland.[169]

Rioters attacking a building during the New York anti-draft riots of 1863When the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, ex-slaves were energetically recruited by the states and used to meet the state quotas. States and local communities offered higher and higher cash bonuses for white volunteers. Congress tightened the law in March 1863. Men selected in the draft could provide substitutes or, until mid-1864, pay commutation money. Many eligibles pooled their money to cover the cost of anyone drafted. Families used the substitute provision to select which man should go into the army and which should stay home. There was much evasion and overt resistance to the draft, especially in Catholic areas. The draft riot in New York City in July 1863 involved Irish immigrants who had been signed up as citizens to swell the vote of the city's Democratic political machine, not realizing it made them liable for the draft.[170] Of the 168,649 men procured for the Union through the draft, 117,986 were substitutes, leaving only 50,663 who had their services conscripted.[171]

In both the North and South, the draft laws were highly unpopular. In the North, some 120,000 men evaded conscription, many of them fleeing to Canada, and another 280,000 soldiers deserted during the war.[172] At least 100,000 Southerners deserted, or about 10 percent; Southern desertion was high because, according to one historian writing in 1991, the highly localized Southern identity meant that many Southern men had little investment in the outcome of the war, with individual soldiers caring more about the fate of their local area than any grand ideal.[173] In the North, "bounty jumpers" enlisted to get the generous bonus, deserted, then went back to a second recruiting station under a different name to sign up again for a second bonus; 141 were caught and executed.[174]

From a tiny frontier force in 1860, the Union and Confederate armies had grown into the "largest and most efficient armies in the world" within a few years. Some European observers at the time dismissed them as amateur and unprofessional,[175] but historian John Keegan concluded that each outmatched the French, Prussian, and Russian armies of the time, and without the Atlantic, would have threatened any of them with defeat.

Prisoners At the start of the Civil War, a system of paroles operated. Captives agreed not to fight until they were officially exchanged. Meanwhile, they were held in camps run by their army. They were paid, but they were not allowed to perform any military duties.[177] The system of exchanges collapsed in 1863 when the Confederacy refused to exchange black prisoners. After that, about 56,000 of the 409,000 POWs died in prisons during the war, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the conflict's fatalities.

Women Historian Elizabeth D. Leonard writes that, according to various estimates, between five hundred and one thousand women enlisted as soldiers on both sides of the war, disguised as men.[179]:'Š165,'Š310''11'Š Women also served as spies, resistance activists, nurses, and hospital personnel.[179]:'Š240'Š Women served on the Union hospital ship Red Rover and nursed Union and Confederate troops at field hospitals.[180]

Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor, served in the Union Army and was given the medal for her efforts to treat the wounded during the war. Her name was deleted from the Army Medal of Honor Roll in 1917 (along with over 900 other Medal of Honor recipients); however, it was restored in 1977.[181][182]

Naval tactics Clashes on the rivers were melees of ironclads, cottonclads, gunboats and rams, complicated by naval mines and fire rafts.Battle between the USS Monitor and MerrimackThe small U.S. Navy of 1861 was rapidly enlarged to 6,000 officers and 45,000 sailors in 1865, with 671 vessels, having a tonnage of 510,396. Its mission was to blockade Confederate ports, take control of the river system, defend against Confederate raiders on the high seas, and be ready for a possible war with the British Royal Navy. Meanwhile, the main riverine war was fought in the West, where a series of major rivers gave access to the Confederate heartland. The U.S. Navy eventually gained control of the Red, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers. In the East, the Navy shelled Confederate forts and provided support for coastal army operations.[186]

The Civil War occurred during the early stages of the industrial revolution. Many naval innovations emerged during this time, most notably the advent of the ironclad warship. It began when the Confederacy, knowing they had to meet or match the Union's naval superiority, responded to the Union blockade by building or converting more than 130 vessels, including twenty-six ironclads and floating batteries. Only half of these saw active service. Many were equipped with ram bows, creating "ram fever" among Union squadrons wherever they threatened. But in the face of overwhelming Union superiority and the Union's ironclad warships, they were unsuccessful.[188]

In addition to ocean-going warships coming up the Mississippi, the Union Navy used timberclads, tinclads, and armored gunboats. Shipyards at Cairo, Illinois, and St. Louis built new boats or modified steamboats for action.[189]

The Confederacy experimented with the submarine CSS Hunley, which did not work satisfactorily,[190] and with building an ironclad ship, CSS Virginia, which was based on rebuilding a sunken Union ship, Merrimack. On its first foray, on March 8, 1862, Virginia inflicted significant damage to the Union's wooden fleet, but the next day the first Union ironclad, USS Monitor, arrived to challenge it in the Chesapeake Bay. The resulting three-hour Battle of Hampton Roads was a draw, but it proved that ironclads were effective warships. Not long after the battle, the Confederacy was forced to scuttle the Virginia to prevent its capture, while the Union built many copies of the Monitor. Lacking the technology and infrastructure to build effective warships, the Confederacy attempted to obtain warships from Great Britain. However, this failed, because Great Britain had no interest in selling warships to a nation that was at war with a stronger enemy, and doing so could sour relations with the U.S.

Union blockade General Scott's "Anaconda Plan" 1861. Tightening naval blockade, forcing rebels out of Missouri along the Mississippi River, Kentucky Unionists sit on the fence, idled cotton industry illustrated in Georgia.By early 1861, General Winfield Scott had devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible, which called for blockading the Confederacy and slowly suffocating the South to surrender. Lincoln adopted parts of the plan, but chose to prosecute a more active vision of war. In April 1861, Lincoln announced the Union blockade of all Southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance and regular traffic ended. The South blundered in embargoing cotton exports in 1861 before the blockade was effective; by the time they realized the mistake, it was too late. "King Cotton" was dead, as the South could export less than 10 percent of its cotton. The blockade shut down the ten Confederate seaports with railheads that moved almost all the cotton, especially New Orleans, Mobile, and Charleston. By June 1861, warships were stationed off the principal Southern ports, and a year later nearly 300 ships were in service.[195]

Blockade runners Gunline of nine Union ironclads. South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston. Continuous blockade of all major ports was sustained by North's overwhelming war production.The Confederates began the war short on military supplies and in desperate need of large quantities of arms which the agrarian South could not provide. Arms manufactures in the industrial North were restricted by an arms embargo, keeping shipments of arms from going to the South, and ending all existing and future contracts. The Confederacy subsequently looked to foreign sources for their enormous military needs and sought out financiers and companies like S. Isaac, Campbell & Company and the London Armoury Company in Britain, who acted as purchasing agents for the Confederacy, connecting them with Britain's many arms manufactures, and ultimately becoming the Confederacy's main source of arms.[196][197]

To get the arms safely to the Confederacy, British investors built small, fast, steam-driven blockade runners that traded arms and supplies brought in from Britain through Bermuda, Cuba, and the Bahamas in return for high-priced cotton. Many of the ships were lightweight and designed for speed and could only carry a relatively small amount of cotton back to England. When the Union Navy seized a blockade runner, the ship and cargo were condemned as a prize of war and sold, with the proceeds given to the Navy sailors; the captured crewmen were mostly British, and they were released.[199]

Economic impact The Southern economy nearly collapsed during the war. There were multiple reasons for this: the severe deterioration of food supplies, especially in cities, the failure of Southern railroads, the loss of control of the main rivers, foraging by Northern armies, and the seizure of animals and crops by Confederate armies.[200] Most historians agree that the blockade was a major factor in ruining the Confederate economy; however, Wise argues that the blockade runners provided just enough of a lifeline to allow Lee to continue fighting for additional months, thanks to fresh supplies of 400,000 rifles, lead, blankets, and boots that the homefront economy could no longer supply.[200]

Surdam argues that the blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually ruined the Southern economy, at the cost of few lives in combat. Practically, the entire Confederate cotton crop was useless (although it was sold to Union traders), costing the Confederacy its main source of income. Critical imports were scarce and the coastal trade was largely ended as well.[201] The measure of the blockade's success was not the few ships that slipped through, but the thousands that never tried it. Merchant ships owned in Europe could not get insurance and were too slow to evade the blockade, so they stopped calling at Confederate ports.[202]

To fight an offensive war, the Confederacy purchased arms in Britain and converted British-built ships into commerce raiders. Purchasing arms involved the smuggling of 600,000 arms (mostly British Enfield rifles) that enabled the Confederate Army to fight on for two more years[203][204] and the commerce raiders were used in raiding U.S. Merchant Marine ships in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Insurance rates skyrocketed and the American flag virtually disappeared from international waters. However, the same ships were reflagged with European flags and continued unmolested.[188] After the war ended, the U.S. government demanded that Britain compensate it for the damage done by blockade runners and raiders outfitted in British ports. Britain partly acquiesced to the demand, paying the U.S. $15 million in 1871 only for commerce raiding.

Din§aslan argues that another outcome of the blockade was oil's rise to prominence as a widely used and traded commodity. The already declining whale oil industry took a blow as many old whaling ships were used in blockade efforts such as the Stone Fleet, and Confederate raiders harassing Union whalers aggravated the situation. Oil products that had been treated mostly as lubricants, especially kerosene, started to replace whale oil used in lamps and essentially became a fuel commodity. This increased the importance of oil as a commodity, long before its eventual use as fuel for combustion engines.

Diplomacy Although the Confederacy hoped that Britain and France would join them against the Union, this was never likely, and so they instead tried to bring the British and French governments in as mediators. The Union, under Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, worked to block this and threatened war if any country officially recognized the existence of the Confederate States of America. In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war to get cotton, but this did not work. Worse, Europe turned to Egypt and India for cotton, which they found superior, hindering the South's recovery after the war.[210]

Cotton diplomacy proved a failure as Europe had a surplus of cotton, while the 1860''62 crop failures in Europe made the North's grain exports of critical importance. It also helped to turn European opinion further away from the Confederacy. It was said that "King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton", as U.S. grain went from a quarter of the British import trade to almost half. Meanwhile, the war created employment for arms makers, ironworkers, and ships to transport weapons.[210]

Lincoln's administration initially failed to appeal to European public opinion. At first, diplomats explained that the United States was not committed to the ending of slavery, and instead repeated legalistic arguments about the unconstitutionality of secession. Confederate representatives, on the other hand, started off much more successful, by ignoring slavery and instead focusing on their struggle for liberty, their commitment to free trade, and the essential role of cotton in the European economy.[211] The European aristocracy was "absolutely gleeful in pronouncing the American debacle as proof that the entire experiment in popular government had failed. European government leaders welcomed the fragmentation of the ascendant American Republic."[211] However, there was still a European public with liberal sensibilities, that the U.S. sought to appeal to by building connections with the international press. As early as 1861, many Union diplomats such as Carl Schurz realized emphasizing the war against slavery was the Union's most effective moral asset in the struggle for public opinion in Europe. Seward was concerned that an overly radical case for reunification would distress the European merchants with cotton interests; even so, Seward supported a widespread campaign of public diplomacy.[211]

U.S. minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams proved particularly adept and convinced Britain not to openly challenge the Union blockade. The Confederacy purchased several warships from commercial shipbuilders in Britain (CSS Alabama, CSS Shenandoah, CSS Tennessee, CSS Tallahassee, CSS Florida, and some others). The most famous, the CSS Alabama, did considerable damage and led to serious postwar disputes. However, public opinion against slavery in Britain created a political liability for British politicians, where the anti-slavery movement was powerful.[212]

A December 1861 cartoon in Punch magazine in London ridicules American aggressiveness in the Trent Affair. John Bull, at right, warns Uncle Sam, "You do what's right, my son, or I'll blow you out of the water."War loomed in late 1861 between the U.S. and Britain over the Trent affair, which began when U.S. Navy personnel boarded the British ship Trent and seized two Confederate diplomats. However, London and Washington were able to smooth over the problem after Lincoln released the two men.[213] Prince Albert had left his deathbed to issue diplomatic instructions to Lord Lyons during the Trent affair. His request was honored, and, as a result, the British response to the United States was toned down and helped avert the British becoming involved in the war.[214] In 1862, the British government considered mediating between the Union and Confederacy, though even such an offer would have risked war with the United States. British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times when deciding on what his decision would be.[213]

The Union victory in the Battle of Antietam caused the British to delay this decision. The Emancipation Proclamation over time would reinforce the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. Realizing that Washington could not intervene in Mexico as long as the Confederacy controlled Texas, France invaded Mexico in 1861 and installed the Habsburg Austrian archduke Maximilian I as emperor.[215] Washington repeatedly protested France's violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Despite sympathy for the Confederacy, France's seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred it from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris. After 1863, the Polish revolt against Russia further distracted the European powers and ensured that they would remain neutral.

Russia supported the Union, largely because it believed that the U.S. served as a counterbalance to its geopolitical rival, the United Kingdom. In 1863, the Russian Navy's Baltic and Pacific fleets wintered in the American ports of New York and San Francisco, respectively.[217]

Eastern theater County map of Civil War battles by theater and yearThe Eastern theater refers to the military operations east of the Appalachian Mountains, including the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina.[citation needed ]

Background Army of the PotomacMaj. Gen. George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26, 1861 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. The 1862 Union strategy called for simultaneous advances along four axes:[218]

McClellan would lead the main thrust in Virginia towards Richmond.Ohio forces would advance through Kentucky into Tennessee.The Missouri Department would drive south along the Mississippi River.The westernmost attack would originate from Kansas.Army of Northern VirginiaRobert E. LeeThe primary Confederate force in the Eastern theater was the Army of Northern Virginia. The Army originated as the (Confederate) Army of the Potomac, which was organized on June 20, 1861, from all operational forces in Northern Virginia. On July 20 and 21, the Army of the Shenandoah and forces from the District of Harpers Ferry were added. Units from the Army of the Northwest were merged into the Army of the Potomac between March 14 and May 17, 1862. The Army of the Potomac was renamed Army of Northern Virginia on March 14. The Army of the Peninsula was merged into it on April 12, 1862.

When Virginia declared its secession in April 1861, Robert E. Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command.

Lee's biographer, Douglas S. Freeman, asserts that the army received its final name from Lee when he issued orders assuming command on June 1, 1862.[219] However, Freeman does admit that Lee corresponded with Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston, his predecessor in army command, before that date and referred to Johnston's command as the Army of Northern Virginia. Part of the confusion results from the fact that Johnston commanded the Department of Northern Virginia (as of October 22, 1861) and the name Army of Northern Virginia can be seen as an informal consequence of its parent department's name. Jefferson Davis and Johnston did not adopt the name, but it is clear that the organization of units as of March 14 was the same organization that Lee received on June 1, and thus it is generally referred to today as the Army of Northern Virginia, even if that is correct only in retrospect.

On July 4 at Harper's Ferry, Colonel Thomas J. Jackson assigned Jeb Stuart to command all the cavalry companies of the Army of the Shenandoah. He eventually commanded the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry.

Battles "Stonewall" Jackson obtained his nickname at the Battle of Bull Run.In one of the first highly visible battles, in July 1861, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces led by Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard near Washington was repulsed at the First Battle of Bull Run (also known as First Manassas).

The Union had the upper hand at first, nearly pushing confederate forces holding a defensive position into a rout, but Confederate reinforcements under Joseph E. Johnston arrived from the Shenandoah Valley by railroad, and the course of the battle quickly changed. A brigade of Virginians under the relatively unknown brigadier general from the Virginia Military Institute, Thomas J. Jackson, stood its ground, which resulted in Jackson receiving his famous nickname, "Stonewall".

Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan attacked Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River, southeast of Richmond. McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign.[221]

Also in the spring of 1862, in the Shenandoah Valley, Stonewall Jackson led his Valley Campaign. Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's 17,000 troops marched 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days and won several minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies (52,000 men), including those of Nathaniel P. Banks and John C. Fremont, preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond. The swiftness of Jackson's men earned them the nickname of "foot cavalry".

Johnston halted McClellan's advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, but he was wounded in the battle, and Robert E. Lee assumed his position of command. General Lee and top subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson defeated McClellan in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat.

The Northern Virginia Campaign, which included the Second Battle of Bull Run, ended in yet another victory for the South. McClellan resisted General-in-Chief Halleck's orders to send reinforcements to John Pope's Union Army of Virginia, which made it easier for Lee's Confederates to defeat twice the number of combined enemy troops.[citation needed ]

The Battle of Antietam, the Civil War's deadliest one-day fightEmboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North with the Maryland Campaign. General Lee led 45,000 troops of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in United States military history. Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation.

When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside was soon defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when more than 12,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded during repeated futile frontal assaults against Marye's Heights.[228] After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.[229]

Confederate dead overrun at Marye's Heights, reoccupied next day May 4, 1863Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, his Chancellorsville Campaign proved ineffective, and he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Chancellorsville is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because his risky decision to divide his army in the presence of a much larger enemy force resulted in a significant Confederate victory. Gen. Stonewall Jackson was shot in the left arm and right hand by accidental friendly fire during the battle. The arm was amputated, but he died shortly thereafter of pneumonia.[231] Lee famously said: "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm."[232]

The fiercest fighting of the battle'--and the second bloodiest day of the Civil War'--occurred on May 3 as Lee launched multiple attacks against the Union position at Chancellorsville. That same day, John Sedgwick advanced across the Rappahannock River, defeated the small Confederate force at Marye's Heights in the Second Battle of Fredericksburg, and then moved to the west. The Confederates fought a successful delaying action at the Battle of Salem Church.[233]

Pickett's ChargeGen. Hooker was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 to 3, 1863). This was the bloodiest battle of the war and has been called the war's turning point. Pickett's Charge on July 3 is often considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy because it signaled the collapse of serious Confederate threats of victory. Lee's army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000).

Western theater The Western theater refers to military operations between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, including the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as parts of Louisiana.[236]

Background Army of the Tennessee and Army of the CumberlandUlysses S. GrantThe primary Union forces in the Western theater were the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland, named for the two rivers, the Tennessee River and Cumberland River. After Meade's inconclusive fall campaign, Lincoln turned to the Western Theater for new leadership. At the same time, the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg surrendered, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River, permanently isolating the western Confederacy, and producing the new leader Lincoln needed, Ulysses S. Grant.[237][citation needed ]

Army of TennesseeThe primary Confederate force in the Western theater was the Army of Tennessee. The army was formed on November 20, 1862, when General Braxton Bragg renamed the former Army of Mississippi. While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern Theater, they were defeated many times in the West.[236]

Battles The Union's key strategist and tactician in the West was Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Forts Henry (February 6, 1862) and Donelson (February 11 to 16, 1862), earning him the nickname of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, by which the Union seized control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Nathan Bedford Forrest rallied nearly 4,000 Confederate troops and led them to escape across the Cumberland. Nashville and central Tennessee thus fell to the Union, leading to attrition of local food supplies and livestock and a breakdown in social organization.[citation needed ]

Leonidas Polk's invasion of Columbus ended Kentucky's policy of neutrality and turned it against the Confederacy. Grant used river transport and Andrew Foote's gunboats of the Western Flotilla to threaten the Confederacy's "Gibraltar of the West" at Columbus, Kentucky. Although rebuffed at Belmont, Grant cut off Columbus. The Confederates, lacking their gunboats, were forced to retreat and the Union took control of western Kentucky and opened Tennessee in March 1862.[239]

Albert Sidney Johnston died at Shiloh.At the Battle of Shiloh, in Shiloh, Tennessee in April 1862, the Confederates made a surprise attack that pushed Union forces against the river as night fell. Overnight, the Navy landed additional reinforcements, and Grant counter-attacked. Grant and the Union won a decisive victory'--the first battle with the high casualty rates that would repeat over and over. The Confederates lost Albert Sidney Johnston, considered their finest general before the emergence of Lee.[241]

One of the early Union objectives in the war was the capture of the Mississippi River, to cut the Confederacy in half. The Mississippi River was opened to Union traffic to the southern border of Tennessee with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee.

In April 1862, the Union Navy captured New Orleans. "The key to the river was New Orleans, the South's largest port [and] greatest industrial center."[243] U.S. Naval forces under Farragut ran past Confederate defenses south of New Orleans. Confederate forces abandoned the city, giving the Union a critical anchor in the deep South. which allowed Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi. Memphis fell to Union forces on June 6, 1862, and became a key base for further advances south along the Mississippi River. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, prevented Union control of the entire river.[245]

By 1863, the Union controlled large portions of the Western Theater, especially areas surrounding the Mississippi River.Bragg's second invasion of Kentucky in the Confederate Heartland Offensive included initial successes such as Kirby Smith's triumph at the Battle of Richmond and the capture of the Kentucky capital of Frankfort on September 3, 1862.[246] However, the campaign ended with a meaningless victory over Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the Battle of Perryville. Bragg was forced to end his attempt at invading Kentucky and retreat due to lack of logistical support and lack of infantry recruits for the Confederacy in that state.

Bragg was narrowly defeated by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee, the culmination of the Stones River Campaign.

Naval forces assisted Grant in the long, complex Vicksburg Campaign that resulted in the Confederates surrendering at the Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863, which cemented Union control of the Mississippi River and is considered one of the turning points of the war.[249]

The Battle of Chickamauga, the highest two-day lossesThe one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga. After Rosecrans' successful Tullahoma Campaign, Bragg, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps (from Lee's army in the east), defeated Rosecrans, despite the heroic defensive stand of Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas.[citation needed ]

Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged in the Chattanooga Campaign. Grant marched to the relief of Rosecrans and defeated Bragg at the Third Battle of Chattanooga, eventually causing Longstreet to abandon his Knoxville Campaign and driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.[251]

Trans-Mississippi theater Background The Trans-Mississippi theater refers to military operations west of the Mississippi River, encompassing most of Missouri, Arkansas, most of Louisiana, and Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Trans-Mississippi District was formed by the Confederate Army to better coordinate Ben McCulloch's command of troops in Arkansas and Louisiana, Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard, as well as the portion of Earl Van Dorn's command that included the Indian Territory and excluded the Army of the West. The Union's command was the Trans-Mississippi Division, or the Military Division of West Mississippi.

Battles Nathaniel Lyon secured St. Louis docks and arsenal, led Union forces to expel Missouri Confederate forces and government.The first battle of the Trans-Mississippi theater was the Battle of Wilson's Creek (August 1861). The Confederates were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge.

Extensive guerrilla warfare characterized the trans-Mississippi region, as the Confederacy lacked the troops and the logistics to support regular armies that could challenge Union control.[255] Roving Confederate bands such as Quantrill's Raiders terrorized the countryside, striking both military installations and civilian settlements.[256] The "Sons of Liberty" and "Order of the American Knights" attacked pro-Union people, elected officeholders, and unarmed uniformed soldiers. These partisans could not be entirely driven out of the state of Missouri until an entire regular Union infantry division was engaged. By 1864, these violent activities harmed the nationwide anti-war movement organizing against the re-election of Lincoln. Missouri not only stayed in the Union but Lincoln took 70 percent of the vote for re-election.

Numerous small-scale military actions south and west of Missouri sought to control Indian Territory and New Mexico Territory for the Union. The Battle of Glorieta Pass was the decisive battle of the New Mexico Campaign. The Union repulsed Confederate incursions into New Mexico in 1862, and the exiled Arizona government withdrew into Texas. In the Indian Territory, civil war broke out within tribes. About 12,000 Indian warriors fought for the Confederacy and smaller numbers for the Union.[258] The most prominent Cherokee was Brigadier General Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to surrender.[259]

After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, General Kirby Smith in Texas was informed by Jefferson Davis that he could expect no further help from east of the Mississippi River. Although he lacked resources to beat Union armies, he built up a formidable arsenal at Tyler, along with his own Kirby Smithdom economy, a virtual "independent fiefdom" in Texas, including railroad construction and international smuggling. The Union, in turn, did not directly engage him. Its 1864 Red River Campaign to take Shreveport, Louisiana, was a failure and Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war.[261]

Lower Seaboard theater Background The Lower Seaboard theater refers to military and naval operations that occurred near the coastal areas of the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) as well as the southern part of the Mississippi River (Port Hudson and south). Union Naval activities were dictated by the Anaconda Plan.[262]

Battles One of the earliest battles of the war was fought at Port Royal Sound (November 1861), south of Charleston. Much of the war along the South Carolina coast concentrated on capturing Charleston. In attempting to capture Charleston, the Union military tried two approaches: by land over James or Morris Islands or through the harbor. However, the Confederates were able to drive back each Union attack. One of the most famous of the land attacks was the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, in which the 54th Massachusetts Infantry took part. The Union suffered a serious defeat in this battle, losing 1,515 soldiers while the Confederates lost only 174.[263] However, the 54th was hailed for its valor in that battle, which encouraged the general acceptance of the recruitment of African American soldiers into the Union Army, which reinforced the Union's numerical advantage.

Fort Pulaski on the Georgia coast was an early target for the Union navy. Following the capture of Port Royal, an expedition was organized with engineer troops under the command of Captain Quincy A. Gillmore, forcing a Confederate surrender. The Union army occupied the fort for the rest of the war after repairing it.[264]

New Orleans capturedIn April 1862, a Union naval task force commanded by Commander David D. Porter attacked Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which guarded the river approach to New Orleans from the south. While part of the fleet bombarded the forts, other vessels forced a break in the obstructions in the river and enabled the rest of the fleet to steam upriver to the city. A Union army force commanded by Major General Benjamin Butler landed near the forts and forced their surrender. Butler's controversial command of New Orleans earned him the nickname "Beast".[265]

The following year, the Union Army of the Gulf commanded by Major General Nathaniel P. Banks laid siege to Port Hudson for nearly eight weeks, the longest siege in US military history. The Confederates attempted to defend with the Bayou Teche Campaign but surrendered after Vicksburg. These two surrenders gave the Union control over the entire Mississippi.[266]

Several small skirmishes were fought in Florida, but no major battles. The biggest was the Battle of Olustee in early 1864.[citation needed ]

Pacific Coast theater The Pacific Coast theater refers to military operations on the Pacific Ocean and in the states and Territories west of the Continental Divide.[267]

Conquest of Virginia William Tecumseh ShermanAt the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac and put Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would end the war.[268] This was total war not in killing civilians but rather in taking provisions and forage and destroying homes, farms, and railroads, that Grant said "would otherwise have gone to the support of secession and rebellion. This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the end."[269] Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the entire Confederacy from multiple directions. Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond, General Franz Sigel (and later Philip Sheridan) were to attack the Shenandoah Valley, General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean), Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia, and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture Mobile, Alabama.[270]

Grant's Overland Campaign These dead soldiers'--from Ewell's May 1864 attack at Spotsylvania'--delayed Grant's advance on Richmond in the Overland Campaign.Grant's army set out on the Overland Campaign intending to draw Lee into a defense of Richmond, where they would attempt to pin down and destroy the Confederate army. The Union army first attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles, notably at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. These battles resulted in heavy losses on both sides and forced Lee's Confederates to fall back repeatedly. At the Battle of Yellow Tavern, the Confederates lost Jeb Stuart.

An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Each battle resulted in setbacks for the Union that mirrored those they had suffered under prior generals, though, unlike those prior generals, Grant chose to fight on rather than retreat. Grant was tenacious and kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond. While Lee was preparing for an attack on Richmond, Grant unexpectedly turned south to cross the James River and began the protracted Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months.

Sheridan's Valley Campaign Philip SheridanGrant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan was initially repelled at the Battle of New Market by former U.S. vice president and Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge. The Battle of New Market was the Confederacy's last major victory of the war and included a charge by teenage VMI cadets. After redoubling his efforts, Sheridan defeated Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in a series of battles, including a final decisive defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Sheridan then proceeded to destroy the agricultural base of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategy similar to the tactics Sherman later employed in Georgia.

Sherman's March to the Sea The Peacemakers by George Peter Alexander Healy portrays Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, and Porter discussing plans for the last weeks of the Civil War aboard the steamer River Queen in March 1865. (Clickable image'--use cursor to identify.)Meanwhile, Sherman maneuvered from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood along the way. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, guaranteed the reelection of Lincoln as president. Hood left the Atlanta area to swing around and menace Sherman's supply lines and invade Tennessee in the Franklin''Nashville Campaign. Union Maj. Gen. John Schofield defeated Hood at the Battle of Franklin, and George H. Thomas dealt Hood a massive defeat at the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying Hood's army.

Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched, with no destination set, laying waste to about 20 percent of the farms in Georgia in his "March to the Sea". He reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia, in December 1864. Sherman's army was followed by thousands of freed slaves; there were no major battles along the march. Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south, increasing the pressure on Lee's army.

The Waterloo of the Confederacy Lee's army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant's. One last Confederate attempt to break the Union hold on Petersburg failed at the decisive Battle of Five Forks (sometimes called "the Waterloo of the Confederacy") on April 1. This meant that the Union now controlled the entire perimeter surrounding Richmond-Petersburg, completely cutting it off from the Confederacy. Realizing that the capital was now lost, Lee's army and the Confederate government were forced to evacuate. The Confederate capital fell on April 2''3, to the Union XXV Corps, composed of black troops. The remaining Confederate units fled west after a defeat at Sayler's Creek on April 6.

End of the war This

New York Times front page celebrated Lee's surrender, headlining how Grant let Confederate officers retain their sidearms and "paroled" the Confederate officers and men.

[279]News of Lee's April 9 surrender reached this southern newspaper (Savannah, Georgia) on April 15'--after the April 14 shooting of President Lincoln.

[280] The article quotes Grant's terms of surrender.

[280]Initially, Lee did not intend to surrender but planned to regroup at Appomattox Station, where supplies were to be waiting and then continue the war. Grant chased Lee and got in front of him so that when Lee's army reached the village of Appomattox Court House, they were surrounded. After an initial battle, Lee decided that the fight was now hopeless, and surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865, during a conference at the McLean House[281][282] In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of peacefully restoring Confederate states to the Union, Lee was permitted to keep his sword and his horse, Traveller. His men were paroled, and a chain of Confederate surrenders began.[283]

On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln died early the next morning. Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson, was unharmed, because his would-be assassin, George Atzerodt, lost his nerve, so Johnson was immediately sworn in as president. Meanwhile, Confederate forces across the South surrendered as news of Lee's surrender reached them.[284] On April 26, 1865, the same day Sergeant Boston Corbett killed Booth at a tobacco barn, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered nearly 90,000 troops of the Army of Tennessee to Major General William Tecumseh Sherman at Bennett Place near present-day Durham, North Carolina. It proved to be the largest surrender of Confederate forces. On May 4, all remaining Confederate forces in Alabama, Louisiana east of the Mississippi River, and Mississippi under Lieutenant General Richard Taylor surrendered.[285]

The Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, was captured at Irwinville, Georgia on May 10, 1865.[286]

On May 13, 1865, the last land battle of the war was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in Texas.[288]

On May 26, 1865, Confederate Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, acting for General Edmund Kirby Smith, signed a military convention surrendering the Confederate trans-Mississippi Department forces. This date is often cited by contemporaries and historians as the end date of the American Civil War.[1][2] On June 2, 1865, with most of his troops having already gone home, technically deserted, a reluctant Kirby Smith had little choice but to sign the official surrender document.[293] On June 23, 1865, Cherokee leader and Confederate Brig. Gen. Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender his forces.[294][295]

On June 19, 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger announced General Order No. 3, bringing the Emancipation Proclamation into effect in Texas and freeing the last slaves of the Confederacy.[296] The anniversary of this date is now celebrated as Juneteenth.[297]

The naval portion of the war ended more slowly. It had begun on April 11, 1865, two days after Lee's surrender, when President Lincoln proclaimed that foreign nations had no further "claim or pretense" to deny equality of maritime rights and hospitalities to U.S. warships and, in effect, that rights extended to Confederate ships to use neutral ports as safe havens from U.S. warships should end.[298] Having no response to Lincoln's proclamation, President Andrew Johnson issued a similar proclamation dated May 10, 1865, more directly stating the premise that the war was almost at an end ("armed resistance...may be regarded as virtually at an end") and that insurgent cruisers still at sea and prepared to attack U.S. ships should not have rights to do so through use of safe foreign ports or waters and warned nations which continued to do so that their government vessels would be denied access to U.S. ports. He also "enjoined" U.S. officers to arrest the cruisers and their crews so "that they may be prevented from committing further depredations on commerce and that the persons on board of them may no longer enjoy impunity for their crimes".[300] Britain finally responded on June 6, 1865, by transmitting a June 2, 1865 letter from Foreign Secretary John Russell, 1st Earl Russell to the Lords of the Admiralty withdrawing rights to Confederate warships to enter British ports and waters but with exceptions for a limited time to allow a captain to enter a port to "divest his vessel of her warlike character" and for U.S. ships to be detained in British ports or waters to allow Confederate cruisers twenty-four hours to leave first.[301] U.S. Secretary of State William Seward welcomed the withdrawal of concessions to the Confederates but objected to the exceptions.[302] Finally, on October 18, 1865, Russell advised the Admiralty that the time specified in his June 2, 1865 message had elapsed and "all measures of a restrictive nature on vessels of war of the United States in British ports, harbors, and waters, are now to be considered as at an end".[303] Nonetheless, the final Confederate surrender was in Liverpool, England where James Iredell Waddell, the captain of the CSS Shenandoah, surrendered the cruiser to British authorities on November 6, 1865.[304]

Legally, the war did not end until August 20, 1866, when President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation that declared "that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America".[305][307]

Union victory and aftermath Map of Confederate territory losses year by yearThe causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of lingering contention today. The North and West grew rich while the once-rich South became poor for a century. The national political power of the slaveowners and rich Southerners ended. Historians are less sure about the results of the postwar Reconstruction, especially regarding the second-class citizenship of the freedmen and their poverty.

Historians have debated whether the Confederacy could have won the war. Most scholars, including James M. McPherson, argue that Confederate victory was at least possible. McPherson argues that the North's advantage in population and resources made Northern victory likely but not guaranteed. He also argues that if the Confederacy had fought using unconventional tactics, it would have more easily been able to hold out long enough to exhaust the Union.[310]

Confederates did not need to invade and hold enemy territory to win but only needed to fight a defensive war to convince the North that the cost of winning was too high. The North needed to conquer and hold vast stretches of enemy territory and defeat Confederate armies to win.[310] Lincoln was not a military dictator and could continue to fight the war only as long as the American public supported a continuation of the war. The Confederacy sought to win independence by outlasting Lincoln; however, after Atlanta fell and Lincoln defeated McClellan in the election of 1864, all hope for a political victory for the South ended. At that point, Lincoln had secured the support of the Republicans, War Democrats, the border states, emancipated slaves, and the neutrality of Britain and France. By defeating the Democrats and McClellan, he also defeated the Copperheads, who had wanted a negotiated peace with the Confederate States of America.

Comparison of Union and Confederacy, 1860''1864[312]YearUnionConfederacyPopulation186022,100,000 (71%)9,100,000 (29%)186428,800,000 (90%)[g]3,000,000 (10%)[313]Free186021,700,000 (98%)5,600,000 (62%)Slave1860490,000 (2%)3,550,000 (38%)1864negligible1,900,000[h]Soldiers1860''642,100,000 (67%)1,064,000 (33%)Railroad miles186021,800 (71%)8,800 (29%)186429,100 (98%)[314]negligibleManufactures186090%10%186498%2%Arms production186097%3%186498%2%Cotton bales1860negligible4,500,0001864300,000negligibleExports186030%70%186498%2%Some scholars argue that the Union held an insurmountable long-term advantage over the Confederacy in industrial strength and population. Confederate actions, they argue, only delayed defeat. Civil War historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly:

I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back .... If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War.

A minority view among historians is that the Confederacy lost because, as E. Merton Coulter put it, "people did not will hard enough and long enough to win."[318][319] However, most historians reject the argument.[320] McPherson, after reading thousands of letters written by Confederate soldiers, found strong patriotism that continued to the end; they truly believed they were fighting for freedom and liberty. Even as the Confederacy was visibly collapsing in 1864''65, he says most Confederate soldiers were fighting hard. Historian Gary Gallagher cites General Sherman, who in early 1864 commented, "The devils seem to have a determination that cannot but be admired." Despite their loss of slaves and wealth, with starvation looming, Sherman continued, "yet I see no sign of let-up'--some few deserters'--plenty tired of war, but the masses determined to fight it out."

Also important were Lincoln's eloquence in rationalizing the national purpose and his skill in keeping the border states committed to the Union cause. The Emancipation Proclamation was an effective use of the President's war powers.[323] The Confederate government failed in its attempt to get Europe involved in the war militarily, particularly Great Britain and France. Southern leaders needed to get European powers to help break up the blockade the Union had created around the Southern ports and cities. Lincoln's naval blockade was 95% effective at stopping trade goods; as a result, imports and exports to the South declined significantly. The abundance of European cotton and Britain's hostility to the institution of slavery, along with Lincoln's Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico naval blockades, severely decreased any chance that either Britain or France would enter the war.

Historian Don Doyle has argued that the Union victory had a major impact on the course of world history.[325] The Union victory energized popular democratic forces. A Confederate victory, on the other hand, would have meant a new birth of slavery, not freedom. Historian Fergus Bordewich, following Doyle, argues that:

The North's victory decisively proved the durability of democratic government. Confederate independence, on the other hand, would have established an American model for reactionary politics and race-based repression that would likely have cast an international shadow into the twentieth century and perhaps beyond."[326]

Scholars have debated what the effects of the war were on political and economic power in the South.[327] The prevailing view is that the southern planter elite retained its powerful position in the South.[327] However, a 2017 study challenges this, noting that while some Southern elites retained their economic status, the turmoil of the 1860s created greater opportunities for economic mobility in the South than in the North.[327]

Casualties One in thirteen veterans were amputees.

Remains of both sides were reinterred.

The war resulted in at least 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths'--two-thirds by disease'--and 50,000 civilians.[10] Binghamton University historian J. David Hacker believes the number of soldier deaths was approximately 750,000, 20 percent higher than traditionally estimated, and possibly as high as 850,000.[328][13] A novel way of calculating casualties by looking at the deviation of the death rate of men of fighting age from the norm through analysis of census data found that at least 627,000 and at most 888,000 people, but most likely 761,000 people, died in the war. As historian McPherson notes, the war's "cost in American lives was as great as in all of the nation's other wars combined through Vietnam."

Based on 1860 census figures, 8 percent of all white men aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6 percent in the North and 18 percent in the South.[332] About 56,000 soldiers died in prison camps during the War.[333] An estimated 60,000 soldiers lost limbs in the war.[334]

Of the 359,528 Union Army dead, amounting to 15 percent of the over two million who served:[7]

110,070 were killed in action (67,000) or died of wounds (43,000).199,790 died of disease (75 percent was due to the war, the remainder would have occurred in civilian life anyway)24,866 died in Confederate prison camps9,058 were killed by accidents or drowning15,741 other/unknown deathsIn addition, there were 4,523 deaths in the Navy (2,112 in battle) and 460 in the Marines (148 in battle).[8]

After the Emancipation Proclamation authorized freed slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States", former slaves who escaped from plantations or were liberated by the Union Army were recruited into the United States Colored Troops regiments of the Union Army, as were black men who had not been slaves. The U.S. Colored Troops made up 10 percent of the Union death toll'--15 percent of Union deaths from disease and less than 3 percent of those killed in battle.[7] Losses among African Americans were high. In the last year and a half and from all reported casualties, approximately 20 percent of all African Americans enrolled in the military died during the Civil War. Notably, their mortality rate was significantly higher than that of white soldiers. While 15.2% of United States Volunteers and just 8.6% of white Regular Army troops died, 20.5% of United States Colored Troops died.[335]:'Š16'Š

The United States National Park Service uses the following figures in its official tally of war losses:[3]

Union: 853,838

110,100 killed in action224,580 disease deaths275,154 wounded in action211,411 captured (including 30,192 who died as POWs)Confederate: 914,660

94,000 killed in action164,000 disease deaths194,026 wounded in action462,634 captured (including 31,000 who died as POWs)An illustration of the war dead following the Battle of Antietam battlefield in 1862While the figures of 360,000 army deaths for the Union and 260,000 for the Confederacy remained commonly cited, they are incomplete. In addition to many Confederate records being missing, partly as a result of Confederate widows not reporting deaths due to being ineligible for benefits, both armies only counted troops who died during their service and not the tens of thousands who died of wounds or diseases after being discharged. This often happened only a few days or weeks later. Francis Amasa Walker, superintendent of the 1870 census, used census and surgeon general data to estimate a minimum of 500,000 Union military deaths and 350,000 Confederate military deaths, for a total death toll of 850,000 soldiers. While Walker's estimates were originally dismissed because of the 1870 census's undercounting, it was later found that the census was only off by 6.5% and that the data Walker used would be roughly accurate.[13]

Analyzing the number of dead by using census data to calculate the deviation of the death rate of men of fighting age from the norm suggests that at least 627,000 and at most 888,000, but most likely 761,000 soldiers, died in the war. This would break down to approximately 350,000 Confederate and 411,000 Union military deaths, going by the proportion of Union to Confederate battle losses.[citation needed ]

Deaths among former slaves has proven much harder to estimate, due to the lack of reliable census data at the time, though they were known to be considerable, as former slaves were set free or escaped in massive numbers in an area where the Union army did not have sufficient shelter, doctors, or food for them. University of Connecticut Professor Jim Downs states that tens to hundreds of thousands of slaves died during the war from disease, starvation, or exposure and that if these deaths are counted in the war's total, the death toll would exceed 1 million.[336]

Losses were far higher than during the recent defeat of Mexico, which saw roughly thirteen thousand American deaths, including fewer than two thousand killed in battle, between 1846 and 1848. One reason for the high number of battle deaths during the war was the continued use of tactics similar to those of the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the century, such as charging. With the advent of more accurate rifled barrels, Mini(C) balls, and (near the end of the war for the Union army) repeating firearms such as the Spencer Repeating Rifle and the Henry Repeating Rifle, soldiers were mowed down when standing in lines in the open. This led to the adoption of trench warfare, a style of fighting that defined much of World War I.[337]

Emancipation Abolition of slavery in the various states of the United States over time: Abolition of slavery during or shortly after the American Revolution

The Northwest Ordinance, 1787

Gradual emancipation in New York (starting 1799, completed 1827) and New Jersey (starting 1804, completed by Thirteenth Amendment, 1865)

The Missouri Compromise, 1821

Effective abolition of slavery by Mexican or joint US/British authority

Abolition of slavery by Congressional action, 1861

Abolition of slavery by Congressional action, 1862

Emancipation Proclamation as originally issued, January 1, 1863

Subsequent operation of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863

Abolition of slavery by state action during the Civil War

Operation of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1864

Operation of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865

Thirteenth Amendment to the US constitution, December 18, 1865

Territory incorporated into the US after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment

Abolishing slavery was not a Union war goal from the outset, but it quickly became one. Lincoln's initial claims were that preserving the Union was the central goal of the war. In contrast, the South saw itself as fighting to preserve slavery. While not all Southerners saw themselves as fighting for slavery, most of the officers and over a third of the rank and file in Lee's army had close family ties to slavery. To Northerners, in contrast, the motivation was primarily to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. However, as the war dragged on, and it became clear that slavery was central to the conflict, and that emancipation was (to quote from the Emancipation Proclamation) "a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing [the] rebellion," Lincoln and his cabinet made ending slavery a war goal, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation.[340] Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation angered both Peace Democrats ("Copperheads") and War Democrats, but energized most Republicans.[340] By warning that free blacks would flood the North, Democrats made gains in the 1862 elections, but they did not gain control of Congress. The Republicans' counterargument that slavery was the mainstay of the enemy steadily gained support, with the Democrats losing decisively in the 1863 elections in the Northern state of Ohio when they tried to resurrect anti-black sentiment.[341]

Emancipation Proclamation Slavery for the Confederacy's 3.5 million blacks effectively ended in each area when Union armies arrived; they were nearly all freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. The last Confederate slaves were freed on June 19, 1865, celebrated as the modern holiday of Juneteenth. Slaves in the border states and those located in some former Confederate territory occupied before the Emancipation Proclamation were freed by state action or (on December 6, 1865) by the Thirteenth Amendment.[342][343] The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army. About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of fundamentally undermining the legitimacy of slavery.[i]

During the Civil War, sentiment concerning slaves, enslavement, and emancipation in the United States was divided. Lincoln's fears of making slavery a war issue were based on a harsh reality: abolition did not enjoy wide support in the west, the territories, and the border states.[346] In 1861, Lincoln worried that premature attempts at emancipation would mean the loss of the border states, and that "to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game."[346] Copperheads and some War Democrats opposed emancipation, although the latter eventually accepted it as part of the total war needed to save the Union.[347]

At first, Lincoln reversed attempts at emancipation by Secretary of War Simon Cameron and Generals John C. Fr(C)mont (in Missouri) and David Hunter (in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) to keep the loyalty of the border states and the War Democrats. Lincoln warned the border states that a more radical type of emancipation would happen if his plan of gradual compensated emancipation and voluntary colonization was rejected.[348] But compensated emancipation occurred only in the District of Columbia, where Congress had the power to enact it. When Lincoln told his cabinet about his proposed emancipation proclamation, which would apply to the states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, Seward advised Lincoln to wait for a Union military victory before issuing it, as to do otherwise would seem like "our last shriek on the retreat".[349] Walter Stahr, however, writes, "There are contemporary sources, however, that suggest others were involved in the decision to delay", and Stahr quotes them.[350]

Lincoln laid the groundwork for public support in an open letter published in response to Horace Greeley's "The Prayer of Twenty Millions".[351][352][353] He also laid the groundwork at a meeting at the White House with five African American representatives on August 14, 1862. Arranging for a reporter to be present, he urged his visitors to agree to the voluntary colonization of black people, apparently to make his forthcoming preliminary Emancipation Proclamation more palatable to racist white people.[354] A Union victory in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, provided Lincoln with an opportunity to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and the subsequent War Governors' Conference added support for the proclamation.[355]

Contrabands, who were fugitive slaves, including cooks, laundresses, laborers, teamsters, railroad repair crews, fled to the

Union Army, but were not legally freed until the

Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln signed on January 1, 1863, more than two years before the end of the Civil War.

In 1863, the

Union Army accepted

Freedmen; seen here are Black and White teen-aged soldiers who volunteered to fight for the Union.

Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. It stated that the slaves in all states in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be free. He issued his final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, keeping his promise. In his letter to Albert G. Hodges, Lincoln explained his belief that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong .... And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling .... I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."[356][j]

Lincoln's moderate approach succeeded in inducing the border states to remain in the Union and War Democrats to support the Union. The border states, which included Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and Union-controlled regions around New Orleans, Norfolk, Virginia, and elsewhere, were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor was Tennessee, which had come under Union control.[358] Missouri and Maryland abolished slavery on their own; Kentucky and Delaware did not.[359] Still, the proclamation did not enjoy universal support. It caused much unrest in what were then considered western states, where racist sentiments led to a great fear of abolition. There was some concern that the proclamation would lead to the secession of western states, and its issuance prompted the stationing of Union troops in Illinois in case of rebellion.

Since the Emancipation Proclamation was based on the President's war powers, it applied only in territory held by Confederates at the time it was issued. However, the Proclamation became a symbol of the Union's growing commitment to add emancipation to the Union's definition of liberty.[361] The Emancipation Proclamation greatly reduced the Confederacy's hope of being recognized or otherwise aided by Britain or France. By late 1864, Lincoln was playing a leading role in getting the House of Representatives to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which mandated the ending of chattel slavery.

Reconstruction Through the supervision of the Freedmen's Bureau, Northern teachers traveled into the South to provide education and training for the newly freed population.The oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and, among other commitments, to "abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the '... rebellion having reference to slaves '... ", signed by former Confederate officer Samuel M. Kennard on June 27, 1865[364] The war devastated the South and posed serious questions of how the South would be reintegrated into the Union. The war destroyed much of the wealth that had existed in the South, in part because wealth held in enslaved people (valued at a minimum of $1,000 each for a healthy adult prior to the war) was wiped off the books.[365] All accumulated investment in Confederate bonds was forfeited; most banks and railroads were bankrupt. The income per capita in the South dropped to less than 40 percent of that of the North, an economic condition that lasted into the 20th century. Southern influence in the federal government, previously considerable, was greatly diminished until the latter half of the 20th century.[366] Reconstruction began during the war, with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, and it continued until 1877.[367] It comprised multiple complex methods to resolve the outstanding issues of the war's aftermath, the most important of which were the three "Reconstruction Amendments" to the Constitution: the 13th outlawing slavery (1865), the 14th guaranteeing citizenship to slaves (1868), and the 15th ensuring voting rights to slaves (1870). From the Union perspective, the goals of Reconstruction were to consolidate the Union victory on the battlefield by reuniting the Union, to guarantee a "republican form of government" for the ex-Confederate states, and to permanently end slavery'--and prevent semi-slavery status.[368]

President Andrew Johnson, who took office on April 15, 1865, took a lenient approach and saw the achievement of the main war goals as realized in 1865 when each ex-rebel state repudiated secession and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Radical Republicans demanded proof that Confederate nationalism was dead and that the slaves were truly free. They overrode Johnson's vetoes of civil rights legislation, and the House impeached him, although the Senate did not convict him. In 1868 and 1872, the Republican candidate Ulysses S. Grant won the presidency. In 1872, the "Liberal Republicans" argued that the war goals had been achieved and that Reconstruction should end. They chose Horace Greeley to head a presidential ticket in 1872 but were decisively defeated. In 1874, Democrats, primarily Southern, took control of Congress and opposed further reconstruction. The Compromise of 1877 closed with a national consensus, except perhaps on the part of former slaves, that the Civil War had finally ended.[369] With the withdrawal of federal troops, however, whites retook control of every Southern legislature, and the Jim Crow era of disenfranchisement and legal segregation was ushered in.[370]

The Civil War had a demonstrable impact on American politics in the years to come. Many veterans on both sides were subsequently elected to political office, including five U.S. Presidents: General Ulysses Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley.[371]

Memory and historiography The Civil War is one of the central events in American collective memory. There are innumerable statues, commemorations, books, and archival collections. The memory includes the home front, military affairs, the treatment of soldiers, both living and dead, in the war's aftermath, depictions of the war in literature and art, evaluations of heroes and villains, and considerations of the moral and political lessons of the war.[372] The last theme includes moral evaluations of racism and slavery, heroism in combat and heroism behind the lines, and issues of democracy and minority rights, as well as the notion of an "Empire of Liberty" influencing the world.[373]

Professional historians have paid much more attention to the causes of the war than to the war itself. Military history has largely developed outside academia, leading to a proliferation of studies by non-scholars who nevertheless are familiar with the primary sources and pay close attention to battles and campaigns and who write for the general public. Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote are among the best known.[375] Practically every major figure in the war, both North and South, has had a serious biographical study.[376]

Even the name used for the conflict has been controversial, with many names for the American Civil War. During and immediately after the war, Northern historians often used a term like "War of the Rebellion". Writers in rebel states often referred to the "War for Southern Independence". More recently, some Southerners have described it as the "War of Northern Aggression".[377]

Lost Cause The memory of the war in the white South crystallized in the myth of the "Lost Cause": that the Confederate cause was just and heroic. The myth shaped regional identity and race relations for generations.[378] Alan T. Nolan notes that the Lost Cause was expressly a rationalization, a cover-up to vindicate the name and fame of those in rebellion. Some claims revolve around the insignificance of slavery as a cause of the war; some appeals highlight cultural differences between North and South; the military conflict by Confederate actors is idealized; in any case, secession was said to be lawful.[379] Nolan argues that the adoption of the Lost Cause perspective facilitated the reunification of the North and the South while excusing the "virulent racism" of the 19th century, sacrificing black American progress to white man's reunification. He also deems the Lost Cause "a caricature of the truth. This caricature wholly misrepresents and distorts the facts of the matter" in every instance.[380] The Lost Cause myth was formalized by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, whose The Rise of American Civilization (1927) spawned "Beardian historiography". The Beards downplayed slavery, abolitionism, and issues of morality. Though this interpretation was abandoned by the Beards in the 1940s, and by historians generally by the 1950s, Beardian themes still echo among Lost Cause writers.[381][382][additional citation(s) needed ]

Battlefield preservation Beginning in 1961, the U.S. Post Office released commemorative stamps for five famous battles, each issued on the 100th anniversary of the respective battle.The first efforts at Civil War battlefield preservation and memorialization came during the war itself with the establishment of National Cemeteries at Gettysburg, Mill Springs and Chattanooga. Soldiers began erecting markers on battlefields beginning with the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. The oldest surviving monument is the Hazen Brigade Monument near Murfreesboro in Central Tennessee, built in the summer of 1863 by soldiers in Union Col. William B. Hazen's brigade to mark the spot where they buried their dead following the Battle of Stones River.[383]

In the 1890s, the U.S. government established five Civil War battlefield parks under the jurisdiction of the War Department, beginning with the creation of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland in 1890. The Shiloh National Military Park was established in 1894 in Shiloh, Tennessee, followed by the Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1895, and Vicksburg National Military Park in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1899.

In 1933, these five parks and other national monuments were transferred to the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.[384] Chief among modern efforts to preserve Civil War sites has been the American Battlefield Trust, with more than 130 battlefields in 24 states.[385][386] The five major Civil War battlefield parks operated by the National Park Service (Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, Chickamauga/Chattanooga and Vicksburg) had a combined 3.1 million visitors in 2018, down 70% from 10.2 million in 1970.[387]

Civil War commemoration Top: Grand Army of the Republic (Union)Bottom: United Confederate Veterans

The American Civil War has been commemorated in many capacities, ranging from the reenactment of battles to statues and memorial halls erected, to films being produced, to stamps and coins with Civil War themes being issued, all of which helped to shape public memory. These commemorations occurred in greater numbers on the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the war.[388]Hollywood's take on the war has been especially influential in shaping public memory, as in such film classics as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Lincoln (2012). Ken Burns's PBS television series The Civil War (1990) is especially well-remembered, though criticized for its historical inaccuracy.[389][390]

Technological significance Numerous technological innovations during the Civil War had a great impact on 19th-century science. The Civil War was one of the earliest examples of an "industrial war", in which technological might is used to achieve military supremacy in a war.[391] New inventions, such as the train and telegraph, delivered soldiers, supplies and messages at a time when horses were considered to be the fastest way to travel.[392][393] It was also in this war that aerial warfare, in the form of reconnaissance balloons, was first used.[394] It saw the first action involving steam-powered ironclad warships in naval warfare history.[395] Repeating firearms such as the Henry rifle, Spencer rifle, Colt revolving rifle, Triplett & Scott carbine and others, first appeared during the Civil War; they were a revolutionary invention that would soon replace muzzle-loading and single-shot firearms in warfare. The war also saw the first appearances of rapid-firing weapons and machine guns such as the Agar gun and the Gatling gun.[396]

In works of culture and art Woodblock etching (note the faint lines where smaller blocks meet to form the larger image) depicting a foundering Confederacy and the upcoming 1864 U.S. presidential election ("The Forlorn Hope'--the ship Secession is on the breakers, the Chicago wreckers rushing to the rescue" by Theodore Jones, Harper's Weekly, October 29, 1864)The Civil War is one of the most studied events in American history, and the collection of cultural works around it is enormous.[397] This section gives an abbreviated overview of the most notable works.

Literature When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd and O Captain! My Captain! (1865) by Walt Whitman, famous eulogies to LincolnBattle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) poetry by Herman MelvilleThe Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881) by Jefferson DavisThe Private History of a Campaign That Failed (1885) by Mark TwainTexar's Revenge, or, North Against South (1887) by Jules VerneAn Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1890) by Ambrose BierceThe Red Badge of Courage (1895) by Stephen CraneThe Challenge to Sirius (1917) by Sheila Kaye-SmithGone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret MitchellNorth and South (1982) by John JakesThe March: A Novel (2005) by E. L. Doctorow, fictionalized account of Sherman's March to the SeaFilm The Birth of a Nation (1915, US)The General (1926, US)Operator 13 (1934, US)Gone with the Wind (1939, US)The Red Badge of Courage (1951, US)The Horse Soldiers (1959, US)Shenandoah (1965, US)The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966, Italy-Spain-FRG)The Beguiled (1971, US)The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976, US)Glory (1989, US)The Civil War (1990, US)Gettysburg (1993, US)The Last Outlaw (1993, US)Cold Mountain (2003, US)Gods and Generals (2003, US)North and South (miniseries)Lincoln (2012, US)Free State of Jones (2016, US)Music "Dixie""Battle Cry of Freedom""Battle Hymn of the Republic""The Bonnie Blue Flag""John Brown's Body""When Johnny Comes Marching Home""Marching Through Georgia""The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"Video games North & South (1989, FR)Sid Meier's Gettysburg! (1997, US)Sid Meier's Antietam! (1999, US)American Conqest: Divided Nation (2006, US)Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War (2006, US)The History Channel: Civil War '' A Nation Divided (2006, US)Ageod's American Civil War (2007, US/FR)History Civil War: Secret Missions (2008, US)Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (2009, US)Darkest of Days (2009, US)Victoria II: A House Divided (2011, US)Ageod's American Civil War II (2013, US/FR)Ultimate General: Gettysburg (2014, UKR)Ultimate General: Civil War (2016, UKR)War of Rights (2018, US)See also Notes ^ See also Conclusion of the American Civil War and American Civil War#End of the war ^ a b Total number that served ^ 211,411 Union soldiers were captured, and 30,218 died in prison. The ones who died have been excluded to prevent double-counting of casualties. ^ 462,634 Confederate soldiers were captured and 25,976 died in prison. The ones who died have been excluded to prevent double-counting of casualties. ^ The Union was the U.S. government and included the states that remained loyal to it, both the non-slave states and the border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware) where slavery was legal. Missouri and Kentucky were also claimed by the Confederacy and given full state delegations in the Confederate Congress for the duration of the war. ^ Assuming Union and Confederate casualties are counted together'--more Americans were killed in World War II than in either the Union or Confederate Armies if their casualty totals are counted separately. ^ "Union population 1864" aggregates 1860 population, average annual immigration 1855''1864, and population governed formerly by CSA per Kenneth Martis source. Contrabands and after the Emancipation Proclamation freedmen, migrating into Union control on the coasts and to the advancing armies, and natural increase are excluded. ^ "Slave 1864, CSA" aggregates 1860 slave census of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas. It omits losses from contraband and after the Emancipation Proclamation, freedmen migrating to the Union controlled coastal ports and those joining advancing Union armies, especially in the Mississippi Valley. ^ In spite of the South's shortage of soldiers, most Southern leaders'--until 1865'--opposed enlisting slaves. They used them as laborers to support the war effort. As Howell Cobb said, "If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong." Confederate generals Patrick Cleburne and Robert E. Lee argued in favor of arming blacks late in the war, and Jefferson Davis was eventually persuaded to support plans for arming slaves to avoid military defeat. The Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox before this plan could be implemented. ^ In late March 1864 Lincoln met with Governor Bramlette, Archibald Dixon, and Albert G. Hodges, to discuss recruitment of African American soldiers in the state of Kentucky. In a letter dated April 4, 1864, Lincoln summarized his stance on slavery, at Hodges' request.[357] References ^ a b Blair, William A. (2015). "Finding the Ending of America's Civil War". The American Historical Review. Oxford University Press. 120 (5): 1753''1766. doi:10.1093/ahr/120.5.1753. JSTOR 43697075 . Retrieved July 29, 2022 . Pennsylvania State University Professor William A. Blair wrote at pages 313''14: "the sheer weight of scholarship has leaned toward portraying the surrenders of the Confederate armies as the end of the war."; The New York Times: "End of the Rebellion; The Last Rebel Army Disbands. Kirby Smith Surrenders the Land and Naval Forces Under His Command. The Confederate Flag Disappears from the Continent. The Era of Peace Begins. Military Prisoners During the War to be Discharged. Deserters to be Released from Confinement. [Official.] From Secretary Stanton to Gen. Dix". The New York Times. United States Department of War. May 29, 1865 . Retrieved July 29, 2022 . ; United States Civil War Centennial Commission Robertson, James I. Jr. (1963). The Civil War. Washington, D.C.: Civil War Centennial Commission. OCLC 299955768. At p. 31, Professor James I. Robertson Jr. of Virginia Tech University and Executive Director of the U. S. Civil War Centennial Commission wrote, "Lee's surrender left Johnston with no place to go. On April 26, near Durham, N. C., the Army of Tennessee laid down its arms before Sherman's forces. With the surrender of isolated forces in the Trans-Mississippi West on May 4, 11, and 26, the most costly war in American history came to an end." ^ a b Among the many other contemporary sources and later historians citing May 26, 1865, the date that the surrender of the last significant Confederate force in the trans-Mississippi department was agreed upon, or citing simply the surrender of the Confederate armies, as the end date for the American Civil War hostilities are George Templeton Strong, who was a prominent New York lawyer; a founder, treasurer, and member of the Executive Committee of United States Sanitary Commission throughout the war; and a diarist. A diary excerpt is published in Gienapp, William E., ed. The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Collection. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001, pp. 313''314 ISBN 978-0-393-97555-0. A footnote in Gienapp shows the excerpt was taken from an edited version of the diaries by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong, vol. 2 (New York: The McMillan Company), pp. 600''601, which differs from the volume and page numbers of the original diaries; the actual diary is shown at https://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/nyhs%3A55249 Archived November 16, 2022, at the Wayback Machine, the page in Strong's original handwriting is shown at that web page, it is Volume 4, pp. 124''125: diary entries for May 23 (continued)-June 7, 1865 of the original diaries; Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States, 1860'''65. Volume II. Hartford: O. D. Case & Company, 1866. OCLC 936872302. p. 757: "Though the war on land ceased, and the Confederate flag utterly disappeared from this continent with the collapse and dispersion of Kirby Smith's command...."; John William Draper, History of the American Civil War. [1] Volume 3. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1870. OCLC 830251756. Retrievfootnoed July 28, 2022. p. 618: "On the 26th of the same month General Kirby Smith surrendered his entire command west of the Mississippi to General Canby. With this, all military opposition to the government ended."; Jefferson Davis. The Rise And Fall Of The Confederate Government. Volume II. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881. OCLC 1249017603. p. 630: "With General E. K. Smith's surrender the Confederate flag no longer floated on the land; p. 663: "When the Confederate soldiers laid down their arms and went home, all hostilities against the power of the Government of the United States ceased."; Ulysses S. Grant Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. Volume 2. [2] New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1886. OCLC 255136538. p. 522: "General E. Kirby Smith surrendered the trans-Mississippi department on the 26th of May, leaving no other Confederate army at liberty to continue the war."; Frederick H. Dyer A compendium of the War of the Rebellion. [3] Des Moines, IA: Dyer Publishing Co., 1908. OCLC 8697590. Full entry on last Table of Contents page (unnumbered on download): "Alphabetical Index of Campaigns, Battles, Engagements, Actions, Combats, Sieges, Skirmishes, Reconnaissances, Scouts and Other Military Events Connected with the "War of the Rebellion" During the Period of Actual Hostilities, From April 12, 1861, to May 26, 1865"; Nathaniel W. Stephenson, The Day of the Confederacy, A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 in The Chronicles Of America Series. [4] New Haven: Yale University Press; Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co.; London: Oxford University Press, 1919. p. 202: "The surrender of the forces of the Trans-Mississippi on May 26, 1865, brought the war to a definite conclusion."; Bruce Catton. The Centennial History of the Civil War. Vol. 3, Never Call Retreat. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965. p. 445. "and on May 26 he [E. Kirby Smith] surrendered and the war was over"; and Gary W. Gallagher, Stephen D. Engle, Robert K. Krick & Joseph T. Glatthaar, foreword by James M. McPherson. The American Civil War: This Mighty Scourge of War. New York: Osprey Publishing, Ltd., 2003 ISBN 978-1-84176-736-9. p. 308: "By 26 May, General Edward Kirby Smith had surrendered the Rebel forces in the trans-Mississippi west. The war was over." ^ a b c d e f "Facts". National Park Service. ^ "Size of the Union Army in the American Civil War" Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine: Of which 131,000 were in the Navy and Marines, 140,000 were garrison troops and home defense militia, and 427,000 were in the field army. ^ "The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies; Series 4 '' Volume 2" Archived July 25, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, United States War Dept., 1900. ^ a b c d e Fox, William F. Regimental losses in the American Civil War Archived May 25, 2017, at the Wayback Machine (1889). ^ a b c d "DCAS Reports '' Principal Wars, 1775''1991". dcas.dmdc.osd.mil. ^ Chambers & Anderson 1999, p. 849. ^ a b Nofi, Al (June 13, 2001). "Statistics on the War's Costs". Louisiana State University. Archived from the original on July 11, 2007 . Retrieved October 14, 2007 . ^ James Downs, "Colorblindness in the demographic death toll of the Civil War" Archived January 19, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Oxford University Press blog, April 13, 2012. "The rough 19th century estimate was that 60,000 former slaves died from the epidemic, but doctors treating black patients often claimed that they were unable to keep accurate records due to demands on their time and the lack of manpower and resources. The surviving records only include the number of black patients whom doctors encountered; tens of thousands of other slaves had no contact with army doctors, leaving no records of their deaths." 60,000 documented plus 'tens of thousands' undocumented gives a minimum of 80,000 slave deaths. ^ Toward a Social History of the American Civil War Exploratory Essays, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 4. ^ a b c Hacker, J. David (September 20, 2011). "Recounting the Dead" . The New York Times. Associated Press. Archived from the original on September 25, 2011 . Retrieved September 22, 2011 . ^ James Downs, "Colorblindness in the demographic death toll of the Civil War" Archived January 19, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Oxford University Press blog, April 13, 2012. "An 2 April 2012 New York Times article, 'New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll', reports that a new study ratchets up the death toll from an estimated 650,000 to a staggering 850,000 people. As horrific as this new number is, it fails to reflect the mortality of former slaves during the war. If former slaves were included in this figure, the Civil War death toll would likely be over a million casualties ...". ^ James C. Bradford, A Companion to American Military History (2010), vol. 1, p. 101. ^ "[I]n 1854, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act ... overturned the policy of containment [of slavery] and effectively unlocked the gates of the Western territories (including both the old Louisiana Purchase lands and the Mexican Cession) to the legal expansion of slavery...."Guelzo, Allen C., Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (2009), p. 80. ^ Freehling, William W. (2008). The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854''1861. Oxford University Press. pp. 9''24. ISBN 978-0-19-983991-9. Martis, Kenneth C. (1989). Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress: 1789''1988. Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. pp. 111''115. ISBN 978-0-02-920170-1. and Foner, Eric (1980). Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War. Oxford University Press. pp. 18''20, 21''24. ISBN 978-0-19-972708-7. ^ Coates, Ta-Nehisi (June 22, 2015). "What This Cruel War Was Over". The Atlantic . Retrieved December 21, 2016 . ^ White, Ronald C. Jr. (2006). Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural. Simon and Schuster. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-7432-9962-6. ^ Gallagher, Gary (February 21, 2011). Remembering the Civil War (Speech). Sesquicentennial of the Start of the Civil War. Miller Center of Public Affairs UV: C-Span . Retrieved August 29, 2017 . Issues related to the institution of slavery precipitated secession.... It was not states' rights, it was not the tariff. It was not unhappiness with manners and customs that led to secession and eventually to war. It was a cluster of issues profoundly dividing the nation along a fault line delineated by the institution of slavery. ^ Dougherty, Keith L.; Heckelman, Jac C. (2008). "Voting on slavery at the Constitutional Convention". Public Choice. 136 (3''4): 293. doi:10.1007/s11127-008-9297-7 . S2CID 14103553. ^ McPherson, James M. (1994). What They Fought For 1861''1865. Louisiana State University Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-8071-1904-4. ^ McPherson, James M. (1997). For Cause and Comrades. Oxford University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-19-509023-9. ^ Gallagher, Gary (February 21, 2011). Remembering the Civil War (Speech). Sesquicentennial of the Start of the Civil War. Miller Center of Public Affairs UV: C-Span . Retrieved August 29, 2017 . The loyal citizenry initially gave very little thought to emancipation in their quest to save the union.... Most loyal citizens, though profoundly prejudice[d] by 21st century standards[,] embraced emancipation as a tool to punish slaveholders, weaken the Confederacy, and protect the Union from future internal strife. A minority of the white populous invoked moral grounds to attack slavery, though their arguments carried far less weight than those presenting emancipation as a military measure necessary to defeat the rebels and restore the Union. ^ "Union Soldiers Condemn Slavery". SHEC: Resources for Teachers. The City University of New York Graduate Center . Retrieved February 2, 2023 . ^ Eskridge, Larry (January 29, 2011). "After 150 years, we still ask: Why 'this cruel war'?". Canton Daily Ledger. Canton, Illinois. Archived from the original on February 1, 2011 . Retrieved January 29, 2011 . ^ Kuriwaki, Shiro; Huff, Connor; Hall, Andrew B. (2019). "Wealth, Slaveownership, and Fighting for the Confederacy: An Empirical Study of the American Civil War". American Political Science Review. 113 (3): 658''673. doi:10.1017/S0003055419000170 . ISSN 0003-0554. ^ Chadwick, French Ensor (1906). Causes of the civil war, 1859''1861. p. 8 '' via Internet Archive. ^ Julius, Kevin C (2004). 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ISBN 0-684-81363-7. ^ Ketcham, Ralph, James Madison: A Biography, pp. 625''626, American Political Biography Press, Newtown, Connecticut, 1971. ISBN 0-945707-33-9. ^ "Benjamin Franklin Petitions Congress". National Archives and Records Administration. August 15, 2016. ^ Franklin, Benjamin (February 3, 1790). "Petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery". Archived from the original on May 21, 2006 . Retrieved May 21, 2006 . ^ John Paul Kaminski (1995). A Necessary Evil?: Slavery and the Debate Over the Constitution. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-945612-33-9. ^ Painter, Nell Irvin (2007). Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1620 to the Present. p. 72. ^ Wilson, Black Codes (1965), p. 15. "By 1775, inspired by those 'self-evident' truths which were to be expressed by the Declaration of Independence, a considerable number of colonists felt that the time had come to end slavery and give the free Negroes some fruits of liberty. This sentiment, added to economic considerations, led to the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery in six northern states, while there was a swelling flood of private manumissions in the South. Little actual gain was made by the free Negro even in this period, and by the turn of the century, the downward trend had begun again. Thereafter the only important change in that trend before the Civil War was that after 1831 the decline in the status of the free Negro became more precipitate." ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio", pp. 1''4, 105''106, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7. ^ McCullough, David. The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, pp. 4, 9, 11, 13, 29''30, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2019. ISBN 978-1-5011-6868-0. ^ Gradert, Kenyon. Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination, pp. 1''3, 14''5, 24, 29''30, University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London, 2020. ISBN 978-0-226-69402-3. ^ Commager, Henry Steele. Theodore Parker, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1936, pp. 206''210. ^ Anderson, Mic. "8 Influential Abolitionist Texts". Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved January 7, 2021 . ^ "The Sentimental Novel: The Example of Harriet Beecher Stowe" by Gail K. Smith, The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing by Dale M. Bauer and Philip Gould, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 221. Book preview Archived November 16, 2022, at the Wayback Machine. ^ Fredrickson, George M., ed., The Impending Crisis of the South, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968. The quotation is from Frederickson's "Introduction", p. ix. ^ The Impending Crisis of the South, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968, p. 25. ^ Shapiro, William E. (1993). The Young People's Encyclopedia of the United States. Brookfield, Conn.: Millbrook Press. ISBN 1-56294-514-9. OCLC 30932823. ^ Robins, R.G. (2004). A.J. Tomlinson: Plainfolk Modernist. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-988317-2. ^ "Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary" (PDF) . Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. December 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022 . Retrieved July 29, 2019 . ^ Kerstetter, Todd M. (September 1, 2012). "The Mormon Rebellion: America's First Civil War, 1857''1858 . By David L. Bigler and Will Bagley. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011. pp. xv, 392.)". The Historian. 74 (3): 564''565. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2012.00328_10.x. ISSN 0018-2370. S2CID 145299150. ^ Res(C)ndez, Andr(C)s (2016). The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-544-60267-0. ^ Bestor, Arthur (1988). Friedman, Lawrence Meir; Scheiber, Harry N. (eds.). "The American Civil War as a Constitutional Crisis". American Historical Review. Harvard University Press. 69 (2): 327''352. doi:10.2307/1844986. ISBN 978-0-674-02527-1. JSTOR 1844986. ^ "Territorial Politics and Government". Territorial Kansas Online: University of Kansas and Kansas Historical Society . Retrieved July 10, 2014 . Finteg. ^ a b Flanagin, Jake (April 8, 2015). "For the last time, the American Civil War was not about states' rights". Quartz . Retrieved June 12, 2021 . ^ a b Foner, Eric (January 23, 2015). "When the South Wasn't a Fan of States' Rights". Politico Magazine . Retrieved June 12, 2021 . ^ a b Finkelman, Paul (June 24, 2015). "States' Rights, Southern Hypocrisy, and the Crisis of the Union". Akron Law Review. 45 (2). ISSN 0002-371X. ^ Forrest McDonald, States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776''1876 (2002). ^ Gara, 1964, p. 190. ^ a b "States' Rights, the Slave Power Conspiracy, and the Causes of the Civil War". Concerning History. July 3, 2017 . Retrieved June 12, 2021 . ^ a b Woods, Michael E. (2017). " 'Tell Us Something about State Rights': Northern Republicans, States' Rights, and the Coming of the Civil War". Journal of the Civil War Era. 7 (2): 242''268. ISSN 2154-4727. JSTOR 26070516. ^ McCurry, Stephanie (June 21, 2020). "The Confederacy Was an Antidemocratic, Centralized State". The Atlantic . Retrieved June 12, 2021 . ^ Charles S. Sydnor, The Development of Southern Sectionalism 1819''1848 (1948). ^ Robert Royal Russel, Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism, 1840''1861 (1973). ^ Kenneth M. Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (1981), p. 198; Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (1969). ^ Frank Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States (1931), pp. 115''61 ^ Robert Gray Gunderson, Old Gentleman's Convention: The Washington Peace Conference of 1861. (1961). ^ Jon L. Wakelyn (1996). Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860 '' April 1861. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 23''30. ISBN 978-0-8078-6614-6. ^ Bertram Wyatt-Brown, The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War, 1760s''1880s (2000). ^ Avery Craven, The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 1848''1861 (1953). ^ "Republican Platform of 1860", in Kirk H. Porter, and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds. National Party Platforms, 1840''1956, (University of Illinois Press, 1956). p. 32. ^ Susan-Mary Grant, North over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (2000); Melinda Lawson, Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War North (2005). ^ "1861 Time Line of the Civil War". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C . Retrieved January 22, 2022 . ^ Jaffa, Harry V. (2004). A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-8476-9953-7. ^ "1861 | Time Line of the Civil War". Library of Congress . Retrieved June 12, 2021 . ^ Ordinances of Secession by State Archived June 11, 2004, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 28, 2012. ^ The text of the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union Archived February 20, 2019, at the Wayback Machine. ^ The text of A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union Archived October 10, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 28, 2012. ^ The text of Georgia's secession declaration Archived July 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 28, 2012. ^ The text of A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union Archived August 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 28, 2012. ^ President James Buchanan, Message of December 8, 1860 Archived December 20, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 28, 2012. ^ "Profile Showing the Grades upon the Different Routes Surveyed for the Union Pacific Rail Road Between the Missouri River and the Valley of the Platte River". World Digital Library. 1865 . Retrieved July 16, 2013 . ^ "Abraham Lincoln imposes first federal income tax". History.com . Retrieved June 12, 2021 . ^ a b c Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1861. ^ Harris, William C. (Winter 2000). "The Hampton Roads Peace Conference: A Final Test of Lincoln's Presidential Leadership". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. 21 (1). hdl:2027/spo.2629860.0021.104. ISSN 1945-7987. ^ Hardyman, Robyn (2016). What Caused the Civil War?. Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-4824-5180-1. ^ "Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation 83 '' Increasing the Size of the Army and Navy". Presidency.ucsb.edu . Retrieved November 3, 2011 . ^ "Civil War and the Maryland General Assembly, Maryland State Archives". msa.maryland.gov . Retrieved May 28, 2017 . ^ a b "Teaching American History in Maryland '' Documents for the Classroom: Arrest of the Maryland Legislature, 1861". Maryland State Archives. 2005. Archived from the original on January 11, 2008 . Retrieved February 6, 2008 . ^ William C. Harris, Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union (University Press of Kansas, 2011), p. 71. ^ "One significant point of disagreement among historians and political scientists is whether Roger Taney heard Ex parte Merryman as a U.S. circuit judge or as a Supreme Court justice in chambers." White, Jonathan W., Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011, pp. 38''39; Vladeck, Stephen I., "The Field Theory: Martial Law, The Suspension Power, and The Insurrection Act" Archived September 27, 2022, at the Wayback Machine, Temple Law Review, vol. 80, no. 2 (Summer 2007), p. 391, n.2. ^ Howard, F. K. (Frank Key) (1863). Fourteen Months in American Bastiles. London: H.F. Mackintosh . Retrieved August 18, 2014 . ^ Nevins, The War for the Union (1959), 1:119''29. ^ Nevins, The War for the Union (1959), 1:129''36. ^ "A State of Convenience, The Creation of West Virginia". West Virginia Archives & History. Archived from the original on May 18, 2012 . Retrieved April 20, 2012 . ^ Curry, Richard Orr (1964), A House Divided: A Study of the Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia, University of Pittsburgh Press, map on p. 49. ^ Snell, Mark A., West Virginia and the Civil War, History Press, Charleston, SC, 2011, p. 28. ^ Keegan, The American Civil War (2009), p. 73. Over 10,000 military engagements took place during the war, 40 percent of them in Virginia and Tennessee. See Gabor Boritt, ed., War Comes Again (1995), p. 247. ^ "With an actual strength of 1,080 officers and 14,926 enlisted men on June 30, 1860, the Regular Army ..." Civil War Extracts Archived October 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine pp. 199''221, American Military History. ^ Nicolay, John George; Hay, John (1890). Abraham Lincoln: A History. Century Company. ^ Coulter, E. Merton (1950). The Confederate States of America, 1861''1865: A History of the South. LSU Press. p. 308. ISBN 978-0-8071-0007-3. ^ Nicolay, John George; Hay, John (1890). Abraham Lincoln: A History. Century Company. state: "Since the organization of the Montgomery government in February, some four different calls for Southern volunteers had been made ... In his message of April 29 to the rebel Congress, Jefferson Davis proposed to organize for instant action an army of 100,000 ..." Coulter reports that Alexander Stephens took this to mean Davis wanted unilateral control of a standing army, and from that moment on became his implacable opponent. ^ Faust, Albert Bernhardt (1909). The German Element in the United States: With Special Reference to Its Political, Moral, Social, and Educational Influence. Houghton Mifflin Company. The railroads and banks grew rapidly. See Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. Jay Cooke: Financier Of The Civil War. Vol. 2. 1907. pp. 378''430. . See also Oberholtzer, Ellis Parson (1926). A history of the United States since the Civil War. The Macmillan company. pp. 69''12. ^ Barnet Schecter, The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (2007). ^ Eugene Murdock, One Million Men: the Civil War draft in the North (1971). ^ Judith Lee Hallock, "The Role of the Community in Civil War Desertion." Civil War History (1983) 29#2 pp. 123''134. online. ^ Bearman, Peter S. (1991). "Desertion as Localism: Army Unit Solidarity and Group Norms in the U.S. Civil War". Social Forces. 70 (2): 321''342. doi:10.1093/sf/70.2.321. JSTOR 2580242. ^ Robert Fantina, Desertion and the American Soldier, 1776''2006 (2006), p. 74. ^ Civil War Institute (January 5, 2015). "A Prussian Observes the American Civil War". The Gettysburg Compiler . Retrieved January 6, 2022 . ^ Roger Pickenpaugh (2013). Captives in Blue: The Civil War Prisons of the Confederacy. University of Alabama Press. pp. 57''73. ISBN 978-0-8173-1783-6. ^ a b Leonard, Elizabeth D. (1999). All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies . W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-3930-4712-1. ^ "Highlights in the History of Military Women". Women In Military Service For America Memorial. Archived from the original on April 3, 2013 . Retrieved June 22, 2013 . ^ Pennington, Reina (2003). Amazons to Fighter Pilots: A Biographical Dictionary of Military Women (Volume Two). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 474''75. ISBN 0-313-32708-4. ^ "The Case of Dr. Walker, Only Woman to Win (and Lose) the Medal of Honor". The New York Times. June 4, 1977 . Retrieved January 6, 2018 . ^ "American Civil War: The naval war". Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica . Retrieved January 24, 2022 . ^ a b Anderson 1989, p. 300. ^ Myron J. Smith, Tinclads in the Civil War: Union Light-Draught Gunboat Operations on Western Waters, 1862''1865 (2009). ^ Gerald F. Teaster and Linda and James Treaster Ambrose, The Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley (1989). ^ Anderson 1989, pp. 288''289, 296''298. ^ Wise, 1991, p. 49. ^ Mendelsohn, 2012, pp. 43''44. ^ Mark E. Neely Jr. "The Perils of Running the Blockade: The Influence of International Law in an Era of Total War", Civil War History (1986) 32#2, pp. 101''18, in Project MUSE. ^ a b Stephen R. Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War (1991). ^ Surdam, David G. (1998). "The Union Navy's blockade reconsidered". Naval War College Review. 51 (4): 85''107. ^ David G. Surdam, Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War (University of South Carolina Press, 2001). ^ David Keys (June 24, 2014). "Historians reveal secrets of UK gun-running which lengthened the American civil war by two years". The Independent. ^ Kevin Dougherty (2010). Weapons of Mississippi. University Press of Mississippi. p. 87. ISBN 9-7816-0473-4522. ^ a b Allan Nevins, War for the Union 1862''1863, pp. 263''264. ^ a b c Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War, New York: Basic Books (2015), pp. 8 (quote), 69''70, 70''74. ^ Richard Huzzeym, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (2013). ^ a b Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm 1820''1861, p. 125. ^ "The Trent Affair: Diplomacy, Britain, and the American Civil War '' National Museum of American Diplomacy". January 5, 2022 . Retrieved January 18, 2022 . ^ Shawcross, Edward (2021). The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-1541-674196. Also titled The Last Emperor of Mexico: A Disaster in the New World. London: Faber & Faber, 2022. ^ Norman E. Saul, Richard D. McKinzie. Russian-American Dialogue on Cultural Relations, 1776''1914 p. 95. ISBN 978-0826210975. ^ Anderson 1989, p. 91. ^ Freeman, Vol. II, p. 78 and footnote 6. ^ Bruce Catton, Terrible Swift Sword, pp. 263''296. ^ Matteson, John, A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2021. ^ Jones, Wilmer L. (2006). Generals in Blue and Gray: Lincoln's Generals. Stackpole Books. pp. 237''38. ISBN 978-1-4617-5106-9. ^ Jonathan A. Noyalas (2010). Stonewall Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign. Arcadia Publishing. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-61423-040-3. ^ Thomas, Emory M. (1997). Robert E. Lee: A Biography. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 287. ISBN 978-0-393-31631-5. ^ "Salem Church". National Park Service. October 5, 2021 . Retrieved March 30, 2022 . ^ a b Bowery, Charles R. (2014). The Civil War in the Western Theater, 1862. Washignton, D.C.: Center of Military History. pp. 58''72. ISBN 978-0160923166. OCLC 880934087. ^ "Vicksburg". American Battlefield Trust . Retrieved September 27, 2022 . ^ Whitsell, Robert D. (1963). "Military and Naval Activity between Cairo and Columbus". Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 62 (2): 107''21. ^ "Death of Albert Sidney Johnston '' Tour Stop #17 (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov . Retrieved March 12, 2022 . ^ Kennedy, p. 58. ^ "10 Facts: The Vicksburg Campaign". American Battlefield Trust. January 31, 2013 . Retrieved September 13, 2022 . ^ Brown, Kent Masterson. The Civil War in Kentucky: Battle for the Bluegrass State. p. 95. ^ Ronald Scott Mangum, "The Vicksburg Campaign: A Study In Joint Operations", Parameters: U.S. Army War College (1991) 21#3, pp. 74''86 online Archived November 27, 2012, at the Wayback Machine ^ "Sherman's March to the Sea". American Battlefield Trust. September 17, 2014. ^ James B. Martin, Third War: Irregular Warfare on the Western Border 1861''1865 (Combat Studies Institute Leavenworth Paper series, number 23, 2012). See also, Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the Civil War (1989). Missouri alone was the scene of over 1,000 engagements between regular units, and uncounted numbers of guerrilla attacks and raids by informal pro-Confederate bands, especially in the recently settled western counties. ^ Bohl, Sarah (2004). "A War on Civilians: Order Number 11 and the Evacuation of Western Missouri". Prologue. 36 (1): 44''51. ^ Graves, William H. (1991). "Indian Soldiers for the Gray Army: Confederate Recruitment in Indian Territory". Chronicles of Oklahoma. 69 (2): 134''45. ^ Neet, J. Frederick Jr. (1996). "Stand Watie: Confederate General in the Cherokee Nation". Great Plains Journal. 6 (1): 36''51. ^ Red River Campaign. Encyclopedia Britannica. online Archived March 27, 2022, at the Wayback Machine. ^ Symonds, Craig L. (2012). The Civil War at sea. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-19-993168-2. OCLC 777948477. ^ "Second Battle of Fort Wagner | Summary | Britannica". www.britannica.com . Retrieved January 25, 2022 . ^ Lattimore, Ralston B. "Battle for Fort Pulaski '' Fort Pulaski National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov . Retrieved April 20, 2022 . ^ Trefousse, Hans L. (1957). Ben Butler: The South Called Him Beast!. New York: Twayne. OCLC 371213. ^ "Vicksburg". American Battlefield Trust . Retrieved March 12, 2022 . ^ "War in the West · Civil War · Digital Exhibits". digitalexhibits.wsulibs.wsu.edu . Retrieved March 7, 2022 . ^ Mark E. Neely Jr.; "Was the Civil War a Total War?" Civil War History, Vol. 50, 2004, pp. 434+. ^ U.S. Grant (1990). Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant; Selected Letters. Library of America. p. 247. ISBN 978-0-940450-58-5. ^ Ron Field (2013). Petersburg 1864''65: The Longest Siege. Osprey Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-4728-0305-4. [permanent dead link ] ^ "Union / Victory! / Peace! / Surrender of General Lee and His Whole Army". The New York Times. April 10, 1865. p. 1. ^ a b "Most Glorious News of the War / Lee Has Surrendered to Grant ! / All Lee's Officers and Men Are Paroled". Savannah Daily Herald. Savannah, Georgia, U.S. April 16, 1865. pp. 1, 4. ^ Simpson, Brooks D., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861''1868, Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991, p. 84. ^ William Marvel, Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (2002), pp. 158''181. ^ Winik, Jay (2001). April 1865 : the month that saved America. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 188''189. ISBN 0-06-018723-9. OCLC 46543709. ^ Unaware of the surrender of Lee, on April 16 the last major battles of the war were fought at the Battle of Columbus, Georgia, and the Battle of West Point. ^ Long, p. 685. ^ Arnold, James R.; Wiener, Roberta (2016). Understanding U.S. Military Conflicts through Primary Sources [4 volumes]. American Civil War: ABC-CLIO. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-61069-934-1. ^ Bradley, Mark L. (2015). The Civil War Ends (PDF) . US Army, Center of Military History. p. 68. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022 . Retrieved May 26, 2022 . ^ "Ulysses S. Grant: The Myth of 'Unconditional Surrender' Begins at Fort Donelson". American Battlefield Trust. April 17, 2009. Archived from the original on February 7, 2016. ^ Morris, John Wesley (1977). Ghost Towns of Oklahoma. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-8061-1420-0. ^ "The 58-year-old Cherokee chieftain was the last Confederate general to lay down his arms. The last Confederate-affiliated tribe to surrender was the Chickasaw nation, which capitulated on 14 July." Bradley, 2015, p. 69. ^ Conner, Robert C. General Gordon Granger: The Savior of Chickamauga and the Man Behind "Juneteenth". Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2013. ISBN 978-1-61200-186-9. p. 177. ^ Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (January 16, 2013). "What Is Juneteenth?". PBS . Retrieved June 12, 2020 . ^ Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation 128'--Claiming Equality of Rights with All Maritime Nations. Dated April 11, 1865. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project [5] Archived November 16, 2022, at the Wayback Machine. University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved July 25, 2022. The proclamation did not use the term "belligerent rights." ^ Andrew Johnson, Proclamation 132'--Ordering the Arrest of Insurgent Cruisers. Dated May 10, 1865. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project [6] Archived November 16, 2022, at the Wayback Machine. University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved July 25, 2022. The proclamation did not use the term "belligerent rights". ^ "Withdrawal of Belligerent Rights by Great Britain". Army and Navy Journal. New York: American News Company. 2 (44): 695. June 24, 1865 . Retrieved July 25, 2022 . ^ "England and the Termination of the Rebellion". Army and Navy Journal. New York: American News Company. 2 (48): 763. July 22, 1865 . Retrieved July 25, 2022 . ^ "Withdrawal of British Restrictions Upon American Naval Vessels". Army and Navy Journal. New York: American News Company. 3 (11): 172. November 4, 1865 . Retrieved July 25, 2022 . ^ Heidler, pp. 703''706. ^ Murray, Robert B. (Autumn 1967). The End of the Rebellion. The North Carolina Historical Review. p. 336 . Retrieved May 6, 2022 . ^ Trudeau, Noah Andre (1994). Out of the Storm: The End of the Civil War, April''June 1865. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 396. ISBN 978-0-316-85328-6. In United States v. Anderson, 76 U.S. 56 (1869), "The U.S. attorneys argued that the Rebellion had been suppressed following the surrender of the Trans-Mississippi Department, as established in the surrender document negotiated on May 26, 1865." p. 396. The Supreme Court decided that the "legal end of the American Civil War had been decided by Congress to be August 20, 1866'--the date of Andrew Johnson's final proclamation on the conclusion of the Rebellion." p. 397. ^ a b Gabor S. Boritt, ed., Why the Confederacy Lost. ^ Railroad length is from: Chauncey Depew (ed.), One Hundred Years of American Commerce 1795''1895, p. 111; For other data see: 1860 U.S. Census Archived August 17, 2017, at the Wayback Machine and Carter, Susan B., ed. The Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition (5 vols), 2006. ^ Martis, Kenneth C. (1994). The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America: 1861''1865. Simon & Schuster. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-13-389115-7. At the beginning of 1865, the Confederacy controlled one third of its congressional districts, which were apportioned by population. The major slave populations found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama were effectively under Union control by the end of 1864. ^ Digital History Reader, U.S. Railroad Construction, 1860''1880 Archived June 11, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Virginia Tech, Retrieved August 21, 2012. "Total Union railroad miles" aggregates existing track reported 1860 @ 21800 plus new construction 1860''1864 @ 5000, plus southern railroads administered by USMRR @ 2300. ^ E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 1861''1865 (1950), p. 566. ^ Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones and William N. Still Jr, Why the South Lost the Civil War (1991), ch 1. ^ see Alan Farmer, History Review (2005) Archived March 23, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, No. 52: 15''20. ^ Fehrenbacher, Don (2004). "Lincoln's Wartime Leadership: The First Hundred Days". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. University of Illinois. 9 (1) . Retrieved October 16, 2007 . ^ Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War, New York: Basic Books (2015). ^ Fergus M. Bordewich, "The World Was Watching: America's Civil War slowly came to be seen as part of a global struggle against oppressive privilege" Archived February 21, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Wall Street Journal (February 7''8, 2015). ^ a b c Dupont, Brandon; Rosenbloom, Joshua L. (2018). "The Economic Origins of the Postwar Southern Elite". Explorations in Economic History. 68: 119''31. doi:10.1016/j.eeh.2017.09.002. ^ "U.S. Civil War Took Bigger Toll Than Previously Estimated, New Analysis Suggests". Science Daily. September 22, 2011 . Retrieved September 22, 2011 . ^ Richard Wightman Fox (2008). "National Life After Death". Slate.com. ^ "U.S. Civil War Prison Camps Claimed Thousands Archived February 25, 2010, at the Wayback Machine". National Geographic News. July 1, 2003. ^ Riordan, Teresa (March 8, 2004). "When Necessity Meets Ingenuity: Art of Restoring What's Missing". The New York Times. Associated Press . Retrieved December 23, 2013 . ^ Herbert Aptheker, "Negro Casualties in the Civil War", The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 32, No. 1. (January 1947). ^ Jim Downs, Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction, Oxford University Press, 2012. ^ "American Civil War Fortifications (2)". United States. ^ a b McPherson, pp. 506''08. ^ McPherson, p. 686. ^ Cathey, Libby (June 17, 2021). "Biden signs bill making Juneteenth, marking the end of slavery, a federal holiday". ABC News . Retrieved June 17, 2021 . ^ Claudia Goldin, "The economics of emancipation." The Journal of Economic History 33#1 (1973): 66''85. ^ a b Lincoln's letter to O. H. Browning, September 22, 1861. Sentiment among German Americans was largely antislavery especially among Forty-Eighters, resulting in hundreds of thousands of German Americans volunteering to fight for the Union."Wittke, Carl (1952). Refugees of Revolution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-1-5128-0874-2. " Christian B. Keller, "Flying Dutchmen and Drunken Irishmen: The Myths and Realities of Ethnic Civil War Soldiers", Journal of Military History, Vol. 73, No. 1, January 2009, pp. 117''145; for primary sources, see Walter D. Kamphoefner and Wolfgang Helbich, eds., Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home (2006). "On the other hand, many of the recent immigrants in the North viewed freed slaves as competition for scarce jobs, and as the reason why the Civil War was being fought." Baker, Kevin (March 2003). "Violent City", American Heritage. Retrieved July 29, 2010. "Due in large part to this fierce competition with free blacks for labor opportunities, the poor and working class Irish Catholics generally opposed emancipation. When the draft began in the summer of 1863, they launched a major riot in New York City that was suppressed by the military, as well as much smaller protests in other cities." Barnet Schecter, The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (2007), ch. 6. Many Catholics in the North had volunteered to fight in 1861, sending thousands of soldiers to the front and suffering high casualties, especially at Fredericksburg; their volunteering fell off after 1862. ^ Baker, Kevin (March 2003). "Violent City", American Heritage. Retrieved July 29, 2010. ^ McPherson, James M., "Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender", in Boritt, Gabor S., ed., Lincoln, the War President, pp. 52''54; also in McPherson, James M., Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, pp. 83''85. ^ Oates, Stephen B., Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths, p. 106. ^ Stahr, Walter, Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017, p. 226. ^ "Horace Greeley (1811''1872). "The Prayer of Twenty Millions". Stedman and Hutchinson, eds. 1891. A Library of American Literature: An Anthology in 11 Volumes". www.bartleby.com. June 14, 2022. ^ Lincoln's letter was published first in the Washington National Intelligencer on August 23, 1862. Holzer, Harold, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014, p. 401. ^ Abraham Lincoln (August 24, 1862). "A LETTER FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN.; Reply to Horace Greeley. Slavery and the Union The Restoration of the Union the Paramount Object". The New York Times. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Wikidata Q116965145. ^ White, Jonathan W., A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022, ch. 3. ^ Pulling, Sr. Anne Frances, Altoona: Images of America, Arcadia Publishing, 2001, 10. ^ Lincoln's Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864. ^ "Lincoln Lore '' Albert G. Hodges". apps.legislature.ky.gov . Retrieved January 20, 2022 . ^ "Andrew Johnson and Emancipation in Tennessee '' Andrew Johnson National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. ^ Harper, Douglas (2003). "Slavery in Delaware". Archived from the original on October 16, 2007 . Retrieved October 16, 2007 . ^ McPherson, James, "A War that Never Goes Away", American Heritage, Vol. 41, no. 2 (Mar 1990). Archived February 18, 2022, at the Wayback Machine ^ "Copy of original document, via Ancestry.com". Ancestry.com. ^ Rhodes-Pitts, Sharifa (October 9, 2014). "The Worth of Black Men, From Slavery to Ferguson". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved December 25, 2023 . ^ The Economist, "The Civil War: Finally Passing Archived April 20, 2011, at the Wayback Machine", April 2, 2011, pp. 23''25. ^ Hans L. Trefousse, Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction (Greenwood, 1991) covers all the main events and leaders. ^ Eric Foner's A Short History of Reconstruction (1990) is a brief survey. ^ C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (2nd ed. 1991). ^ Williams, Susan Millar; Hoffius, Stephen G. (2011). Upheaval in Charleston: Earthquake and Murder on the Eve of Jim Crow. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3715-9. JSTOR j.ctt46nc9q '' via JSTOR. ^ "Presidents Who Were Civil War Veterans". Essential Civil War Curriculum. ^ Joan Waugh and Gary W. Gallagher, eds. (2009), Wars within a War: Controversy and Conflict over the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press). ^ David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001). ^ Cushman, Stephen (2014). Belligerent Muse: Five Northern Writers and How They Shaped Our Understanding of the Civil War. UNC Press Books. pp. 5''6. ISBN 978-1-4696-1878-4. ^ Charles F. Ritter and Jon L. Wakelyn, eds., Leaders of the American Civil War: A Biographical and Historiographical Dictionary (1998). Provides short biographies and historiographical summaries. ^ Oscar Handlin; Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr.; Samuel Eliot Morison; Frederick Merk; Arthur M. Schlesinger; Paul Herman Buck (1954), Harvard Guide to American History, Belknap Press, pp. 385''98, Wikidata Q118746838 ^ Gaines M. Foster (1988), Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause and the Emergence of the New South, 1865''1913. ^ Nolan, Alan T., in Gallagher, Gary W., and Alan T. Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History (2000), pp. 14''19. ^ Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause, pp. 28''29. ^ Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927), 2:54. ^ Richard Hofstadter (2012) [1968]. Progressive Historians. Knopf Doubleday. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-307-80960-5. ^ [7] Archived November 18, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Murfreesboro Post, April 27, 2007, "Hazen's Monument a rare, historic treasure." Accessed May 30, 2018. ^ Timothy B. Smith, "The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation" (2008; The University of Tennessee Press). ^ Bob Zeller, "Fighting the Second Civil War: A History of Battlefield Preservation and the Emergence of the Civil War Trust", (2017: Knox Press) ^ [8] Archived August 12, 2019, at the Wayback Machine American Battlefield Trust "Saved Land" page. Accessed May 30, 2018. ^ Cameron McWhirter, "Civil War Battlefields Lose Ground as Tourist Draws" The Wall Street Journal May 25, 2019 Archived October 10, 2019, at the Wayback Machine ^ Gary Gallagher, Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2008). ^ "Debate over Ken Burns Civil War doc continues over decades | The Spokesman-Review". spokesman.com . Retrieved May 4, 2020 . ^ Merritt, Keri Leigh. "Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary". Smithsonian Magazine . Retrieved May 4, 2020 . ^ Bailey, Thomas and David Kennedy: The American Pageant, p. 434. 1987 ^ Dome, Steam (1974). "A Civil War Iron Clad Car". Railroad History. The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. 130 (Spring 1974): 51''53. ^ William Rattle Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, ed. Christopher H. Sterling(New York: Arno Press, 1974) vol. 1:63. ^ Buckley, John (2006). Air Power in the Age of Total War. Routledge. pp. 6, 24. ISBN 978-1-135-36275-1. ^ Sondhaus, Naval Warfare 1815''1914 p. 77. ^ Keegan, John (2009). The American Civil War. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-307-27314-7. ^ Hutchison, Coleman (2015). A History of American Civil War Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-43241-9. Bibliography Ahlstrom, Sydney E. (1972). A Religious History of the American People. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-01762-5. Anderson, Bern (1989). By Sea and By River: The naval history of the Civil War. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80367-3. [permanent dead link ] Asante, Molefi Kete; Mazama, Ama (2004). Encyclopedia of Black Studies. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-0-7619-2762-4. Beringer, Richard E., Archer Jones, and Herman Hattaway (1986). Why the South Lost the Civil War, influential analysis of factors; an abridged version is The Elements of Confederate Defeat: Nationalism, War Aims, and Religion (1988)Bestor, Arthur (1964). "The American Civil War as a Constitutional Crisis". American Historical Review. 69 (2): 327''52. doi:10.2307/1844986. JSTOR 1844986. Canney, Donald L. (1998). Lincoln's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861''65. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-519-4. Chambers, John W.; Anderson, Fred (1999). The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507198-6. Din§aslan, M. Bahadırhan (2022). Amerikan Ä°§ Savaşı El Kitabı (US Civil War Handbook) . Ankara, Turkey: Altınordu Yayınları Press. ISBN 978-6-257-61066-7. Donald, David Herbert (1995). Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-80846-8. Dunkerly, Robert M. (2015). To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place and the Surrenders of the Confederacy. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie. ISBN 978-1-61121-252-5. Foner, Eric (1981). Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-502926-0 . Retrieved April 20, 2012 . Foner, Eric (2010). The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-34066-2. Frank, Joseph Allan; Reaves, George A. (2003). Seeing the Elephant: Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07126-3. Fuller, Howard J. (2008). Clad in Iron: The American Civil War and the Challenge of British Naval Power. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-297-3. Gallagher, Gary W. (1999). The Confederate War. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-16056-9. Gallagher, Gary W. (2011). The Union War. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-06608-3.Gara, Larry (1964). "The Fugitive Slave Law: A Double Paradox," in Unger, Irwin, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970 (originally published in Civil War History, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1964, pp. 229''40).Hacker, J. David (December 2011). "A Census-Based Count of the Civil War Dead". Civil War History. 57 (4): 307''48. doi:10.1353/cwh.2011.0061. PMID 22512048. S2CID 30195230. Heidler, David S.; Heidler, Jeanne T.; Coles, David J. (2002). Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-382-7. Herring, George C. (2011). From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-976553-9. [permanent dead link ] Hofstadter, Richard (1938). "The Tariff Issue on the Eve of the Civil War". American Historical Review. 44 (1): 50''55. doi:10.2307/1840850. JSTOR 1840850. Holzer, Harold; Gabbard, Sara Vaughn, eds. (2007). Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-2764-5. Hunt, Jeffrey Wm (2015). The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-73461-6. Johannsen, Robert W. (1973). Stephen A. Douglas. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-501620-8. Johnson, Timothy D. (1998). Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0914-7. Jones, Howard (2002). Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations to 1913. Wilmington, Delaware: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8420-2916-2. Jones, Terry L. (2011). Historical Dictionary of the Civil War. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7953-9. Keegan, John (2009). The American Civil War: A Military History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26343-8. Krannawitter, Thomas L. (2008). Vindicating Lincoln: defending the politics of our greatest president. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7425-5972-1. Long, E.B. (1971). The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861''1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. OCLC 68283123. McPherson, James M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-503863-7. McPherson, James M. (1997). For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-974105-2. McPherson, James M. (2007). This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War . Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539242-5. Mendelsohn, Adam (2012). "Samuel and Saul Isaac: International Jewish Arms Dealers, Blockade Runners, and Civil War Profiteers" (PDF) . Journal of the Southern Jewish Historical Society. Southern Jewish Historical Society. 15: 41''79. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Murray, Williamson; Bernstein, Alvin; Knox, MacGregor (1996). The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War. Cabmbridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-56627-8. Neely, Mark E. (1993). Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press. ISBN 978-0-87462-325-3. Neff, Stephen C. (2010). Justice in Blue and Gray: A Legal History of the Civil War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-1-61121-252-5. Nelson, James L. (2005). Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-052404-3. Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union, an 8-volume set (1947''1971). the most detailed political, economic and military narrative; by Pulitzer Prize-winner1. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847''1852 online; 2. A House Dividing, 1852''1857; 3. Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857''1859; 4. Prologue to Civil War, 1859''1861; vols 5''8 have the series title War for the Union; 5. The Improvised War, 1861''1862; 6. online; War Becomes Revolution, 1862''1863; 7. The Organized War, 1863''1864; 8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864''1865Olsen, Christopher J. (2002). Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi: Masculinity, Honor, and the Antiparty Tradition, 1830''1860. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516097-0. Potter, David M. (1962b). "The Historian's Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa". American Historical Review. 67 (4): 924''50. doi:10.2307/1845246. JSTOR 1845246. Potter, David M.; Fehrenbacher, Don E. (1976). The Impending Crisis, 1848''1861 . New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-013403-7. Richter, William L. (2009). The A to Z of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6336-1. Russell, Robert R. (1966). "Constitutional Doctrines with Regard to Slavery in Territories". Journal of Southern History. 32 (4): 466''86. doi:10.2307/2204926. JSTOR 2204926. Sheehan-Dean, Aaron. A Companion to the U.S. Civil War 2 vol. (April 2014) Wiley-Blackwell, New York ISBN 978-1-444-35131-6. 1232 pp; 64 Topical chapters by scholars and experts; emphasis on historiography.Stampp, Kenneth M. (1990). America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink . Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-503902-3. Stern, Phillip Van Doren (1962). The Confederate Navy. Doubleday & Company, Inc. Symonds, Craig L.; Clipson, William J. (2001). The Naval Institute Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-984-0. Thornton, Mark; Ekelund, Robert Burton (2004). Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War. Rowman & Littlefield. Tucker, Spencer C.; Pierpaoli, Paul G.; White, William E. (2010). The Civil War Naval Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-338-5. Varon, Elizabeth R. (2008). Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789''1859. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3232-5. Vinovskis, Maris (1990). Toward a Social History of the American Civil War: Exploratory Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-39559-5. Ward, Geoffrey R. (1990). The Civil War: An Illustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-394-56285-8. Weeks, William E. (2013). The New Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-00590-7. Weigley, Frank Russell (2004). A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861''1865. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33738-2. Welles, Gideon (1865). Secretary of the Navy's Report. Vol. 37''38. American Seamen's Friend Society. Winters, John D. (1963). The Civil War in Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-0834-5. Wise, Stephen R. (1991). Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8724-97993. Borrow book at: archive.orgWoodworth, Steven E. (1996). The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research. Wesport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-29019-0. Further reading Catton, Bruce (1960). The Civil War. New York: American Heritage Distributed by Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-8281-0305-3. Davis, William C. (1983). Stand in the Day of Battle: The Imperiled Union: 1861''1865. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-14895-5. Davis, William C. (2003). Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-7432-3499-3. Donald, David; Baker, Jean H.; Holt, Michael F. (2001). The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-97427-0. Fehrenbacher, Don E. (1981). Slavery, Law, and Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-502883-6. Fellman, Michael; Gordon, Lesley J.; Sunderland, Daniel E. (2007). This Terrible War: The Civil War and its Aftermath (2nd ed.). New York: Pearson. ISBN 978-0-321-38960-2. Green, Fletcher M. (2008). Constitutional Development in the South Atlantic States, 1776''1860: A Study in the Evolution of Democracy. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-58477-928-5. Guelzo, Allen C. (2009). Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-536780-5. Guelzo, Allen C. (2012). Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-984328-2. Holt, Michael F. (2005). The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0-8090-4439-9. Huddleston, John (2002). Killing Ground: The Civil War and the Changing American Landscape . Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6773-6. Jones, Howard (1999). Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-2582-4. Lipset, Seymour Martin (1960). Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics . Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. McPherson, James M. (1992). Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-045842-0. Murray, Robert Bruce (2003). Legal Cases of the Civil War. Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-0059-7. Perman, Michael; Taylor, Amy M. (2010). Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction: Documents and Essays (3rd ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-618-87520-7. Potter, David M. (1962a) [1942]. Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis. New Haven: Yale University Press. Rhodes, John Ford (1917). History of the Civil War, 1861''1865. New York: The Macmillan Company. Schott, Thomas E. (1996). Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-2106-1. External links West Point Atlas of Civil War BattlesCivil War photos at the National ArchivesView images from the Civil War Photographs Collection at the Library of CongressThe short film A House Divided (1960) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive."American Civil World" maps at the Persuasive Cartography, The PJ Mode Collection, Cornell University LibraryCivil War Manuscripts at Shapell Manuscript FoundationStatements of each state as to why they were seceding, battlefields.orgNational Park Service Civil War PlacesCivil War Battlefield Places from the National Park ServiceAmerican Battlefield Trust '' A non-profit land preservation and educational organization with two divisions, the Civil War Trust and the Revolutionary War Trust, dedicated to preserving America's battlefields through land acquisitions.Civil War Era Digital Collection at Gettysburg College '' This collection contains digital images of political cartoons, personal papers, pamphlets, maps, paintings and photographs from the Civil War Era held in Special Collections at Gettysburg College.Civil War 150 Archived October 27, 2019, at the Wayback Machine '' Washington Post interactive website on the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War.Civil War in the American South Archived March 13, 2021, at the Wayback Machine '' An Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) portal with links to almost 9,000 digitized Civil War-era items '' books, pamphlets, broadsides, letters, maps, personal papers, and manuscripts '' held at ASERL member librariesThe Civil War '' site with 7,000 pages, including the complete run of Harper's Weekly newspapers from the Civil War

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Robert Greene is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, and The 50th Law. His highly anticipated fifth book, Mastery, examines the lives of great historical figures such as Charles Darwin, Mozart, Paul Graham and Henry Ford and distills the traits and universal ingredients that made them masters. In addition to having a strong following within the business world and a deep following in Washington, DC, Greene's books are hailed by everyone from war historians to the biggest musicians in the industry (including Jay-Z and 50 Cent).

Greene attended U.C. Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he received a degree in classical studies. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

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Wed, 27 Dec 2023 17:15

Express. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express. HOME News Politics Royal Showbiz & TV Sport Comment Finance Travel Life & Style UK World Politics Royal US Weather Science Weird History Nature Sunday InYourArea "Zelensky feels all this, and it makes him nervous. Next year we can expect a lot of interesting things," Putin ally Vasily Dandykin said. 17:06, Sun, Dec 24, 2023 | UPDATED: 17:31, Sun, Dec 24, 2023

Volodymyr Zelensky faces internal threats, the Russian commentator claimed (Image: Getty)

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky "knows too much" and is at risk of assassination from within his own inner circle, according to Putin ally Vasily Dandykin.

In his chilling prediction about the fate of Ukraine's leader, Dandykin - a Russian reserve captain - claimed he had failed in his role and that Western allies will target him.

"He's already done his job," said Dandykin, according to Russian website MK.ru. "They won't leave him alive, he knows too much."

Despite Zelensky being seen as a hero in Ukraine and by his Western allies, Dandykin suggests there are replacements waiting in the wings.

"He could be replaced by [armed services chief Valerii] Zaluzhny or by [former president Petro] Poroshenko, who now suddenly began to raise his head and make statements," he said.

READ MORE: Joe Biden 'stepped in' to stop Israel from carrying out brutal attack on Hezbollah

"Zelensky feels all this, and it makes him nervous. Next year we can expect a lot of interesting things."

Dandykin warned: "The situation in Ukraine can change very quickly. Their front may crumble both from internal political problems and from the lack of money to which they are accustomed. And, of course, traditionally, Moscow will be to blame for everything."

He also suggested Zelensky's weakness comes from a stuttering Ukrainian counter-attack, with their armed forces now relying more on "terrorist attacks on the territory of new regions and Russia".

Dandykin shockingly suggested that Zelensky's best option might be to take his own life.

Don't miss... Ukraine 'in a mess' as Russian troops make huge advances in Avdiivka and Bakhmut [REPORT]

"At best, he will repeat the fate of Alexander Kerensky, who from July to November 1917 was the head of the [Russian] provisional government," he said.

"A year later, in 1918, he fled abroad using forged documents. He gave anti-Soviet lectures, complained and wrote memoirs. When Kerensky became seriously ill, in order not to be a burden to his loved ones, he refused to eat.

"When doctors injected him with a nutrient solution through a vein, he pulled out the needle. It was comparable to suicide."

Last week, Zelensky addressed US Congress in a bid to secure continued financial backing for the grueling war with Russia.

He vowed to never give up in an impassioned speech, telling the audience: "I hope my words of respect and gratitude resonate in each American heart. Against all odds, and doom and gloom scenarios, Ukraine didn't fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking."

This article was crafted with the help of AI tools, which speed up the Daily Express editorial research. A Daily Express editor reviewed this content before it was published. You can report any errors here

Become an Express Premium member Support fearless journalism Read The Daily Express online, advert free Get super-fast page loading Wednesday, 27th December 2023

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Wed, 27 Dec 2023 16:27

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) '' Multnomah County is urging residents to practice good hygiene amid an uptick in shigella cases in Old Town Portland.

Shigella '-- a bacteria that is spread through fecal matter '-- can cause fever, stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea, which can last three to 10 days, and can include blood, health officials warn.

''Shigella spreads when one person's infected poop gets into another person's mouth through food or water, from objects or surfaces with shigella bacteria on them, or during sex,'' Multnomah County said. ''Shigella spreads very easily. Even a very small amount is enough to make someone sick.''

In a Dec. 22 Instagram post spreading awareness of the illness, the Portland Police Bureau's Central Bike Squad echoed calls for good hygiene and advised people who live and work in the area to not bring their shoes inside their homes or tents in order to prevent further spread of the bacteria.

In November, Multnomah County reported a ''cluster'' of drug-resistant shigella cases, with 16 cases reported in the Portland metro area since September.

The county said the illness has historically affected men who have sex with men, international travelers, and noted other outbreaks have occurred from food service and contaminated water.

In December, Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties have reported 45 cases, with multiple strains impacting case count, Multnomah County says '-- pointing out they have identified nine different strains of shigella in the Portland metro area since October.

In 2022, the tri-county area saw 150 reported shigella cases, with reported cases likely making up a ''small fraction'' of total cases, officials said.

So far in 2023, 218 cases have been reported, the county says, adding that most strains enter the region from international travelers and ''social-sexual networks.''

The county says shigella among the homeless population is not typical but can easily spread among this group due to lack of access to hygiene and barriers to healthcare.

''Local disease patterns suggest that fecal-oral spread through sexual contact may account for between half and more than two thirds of all cases without international travel. The rest are typically attributed to other types of person-to-person spread including outbreaks among populations with lack of hygiene, shelter, and sanitation, and among people who use illicit substances,'' county officials told KOIN 6 News.

The county pointed out ''during 2020 a single strain of Shigella caused multiple clusters among men who have sex with men, persons experiencing homelessness, as well as causing outbreaks at a food cart, and separately, a healthcare facility. Multnomah County epidemiology immediately identified these shifts into defined outbreaks and were successful in stopping illness spread from the food cart as well as within the healthcare facility.''

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are 450,000 shigella infections in the United States every year.

Most people with the illness are better within one to two weeks; however, symptoms can last longer and be more serious for people with weakened immune systems, health officials said.

Health experts say the bacteria can live for up to four weeks in poop and warn that people can still spread the illness even if their symptoms are better.

To prevent the spread of shigella, officials urge community members to maintain good hygiene by showering and washing their hands often with soap and clean water after using the bathroom, changing diapers, and before making or eating food.

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Wed, 27 Dec 2023 15:32

The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI. AFP via Getty Images The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI on Wednesday, alleging the companies used the newspaper's content without its permission.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Times alleged that Microsoft 's Copilot and OpenAI's ChatGPT unlawfully have used the publication's work to create artificial-intelligence products that compete with the Times.

''Defendants' generative artificial intelligence (''GenAI'') tools rely on large-language models (''LLMs'') that were built by copying and using millions of The Times's copyrighted news articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, how-to guides, and more,'' the lawsuit said.

Neither Microsoft nor OpenAI immediately responded to a Barron's request for comment.

The Times also said it has been trying to negotiate with Microsoft and OpenAI for months on the issue without a resolution.

The publication is seeking damages and the prevention of the continued alleged copyright of its content.

''Times journalism is the work of thousands of journalists, whose employment costs hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Each defendant has wrongfully benefited from nearly a century of that work'--some performed in harm's way'--that remains protected by copyright law,'' the Times said in the lawsuit. ''Defendants have effectively avoided spending the billions of dollars that The Times invested in creating that work by taking it without permission or compensation.''

Shares of the New York Times were up 1.7% to $46.91 on Wednesday. Microsoft stock was down 0.2%.

Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com

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Wed, 27 Dec 2023 15:28

Image caption, Gerard Depardieu and Vladimir Putin met in the Russian resort of Sochi

French actor Gerard Depardieu has met President Vladimir Putin and has been handed his new Russian passport.

The actor had announced he was seeking Russian citizenship after the French government criticised his decision to move abroad to avoid higher taxes.

Mr Depardieu met Mr Putin in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Mr Depardieu was then given his new passport, although the president's spokesman said Mr Putin did not hand it over personally.

Mr Depardieu and Mr Putin shook hands and hugged each other at the meeting in Sochi.

The actor was later invited to set up home in the central Russian region of Mordovia, known for its Stalin-era prison camps.

Local governor Vladimir Volkov said Mr Depardieu could choose an apartment or a place to build a house, Interfax news agency reported.

After arriving in Mordovia's main city of Saransk, the actor showed of his new passport, saying: "I am very happy, it's very beautiful here. Beautiful and soulful people live here."

Earlier this week, Mr Putin signed the decree granting Russian citizenship to Mr Depardieu.

Media caption, Wearing folk costume, Gerard Depardieu showed off his new Russian passport after arriving in Saransk, Mordovia

The actor responded by writing an open letter saying: "I love your country, Russia - its people, its history, its writers. I love your culture, your intelligence."

Mr Depardieu went on to describe Russia as "a great democracy, and not a country where the prime minister calls one of its citizens shabby".

Mr Depardieu's highly publicised tax row began last year after new President Francois Hollande said he would raise taxes to 75% for those earning more than 1m euros (£817,400).

The actor accused the socialist government of punishing "success, creation and talent", and announced in early December that he would move to Belgium.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault branded his decision to move abroad as "shabby and unpatriotic".

The actor, described by Mr Putin as a friend, has developed close ties with Russia, which has a flat 13% personal income tax rate.

He currently appears in an advertisement for Sovietsky Bank's credit card and is prominently featured on the bank's home page.

In 2011, he played the lead role in the film Rasputin, a Franco-Russian production about the life of eccentric monk Grigory Rasputin.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 23:43

We've criticized the security and privacy mechanisms of Mastodon in the past, but this new development should be eye-opening. Alex Gleason, the former Truth Social developer behind Soapbox and Rebased, has come up with a sneaky workaround to how Authorized Fetch functions: if your domain is blocked for a fetch, just sign it with a different domain name instead.

How did this happen?Gleason was originally investigating Threads federation to determine whether or not a failure to fetch posts indicated a software compatibility issue, or if Threads had blocked his server. After checking some logs and experimenting, he came to a conclusion.

''Fellas,'' Gleason writes, ''I think threads.net might be blocking some servers already.''

What Alex found was that Threads attempts to verify domain names before allowing access to a resource, a very similar approach to what Authorized Fetch does in Mastodon.

You can see Threads fetching your own server by looking at the `facebookexternalua` user agent. Try this command on your server:`grep facebookexternalua /var/log/nginx/access.log`

If you see logs there, that means Threads is attempting to verify your signatures and allow you to access their data.

This one weird trick allowed him to verify that, while his personal instance wasn't blocked, more than a few of his communities were: Spinster, Neenster, Poast, and the Mostr Bridge are all reportedly blocked domains. While Alex isn't directly involved in all of these projects, they have benefited from his development and support, providing spaces for bigoted speech to grow and spread.

What's interesting is that Threads itself has been reportedly lax on policies pertaining to transphobia and hate speech, so the blocks are something of a surprise. Accounts such as Libs of Tiktok remain active, widely followed, and unbanned on Threads.

Block EvasionTo get around the block, Alex found that it's possible to sign fetch requests with a different domain name entirely, using an A record that points back to the receiving instance.

Meta seems to be betting on the fact that people have played nicely in the past, but I for one am not going to let them have their way. I am going to ensure the data they publish remains free and open to all'...Tools to work around Authenticated fetch are being shipped with new versions of Fediverse software. Censorship by Meta will create a continued need for this industry to grow.

While this is being framed as a freedom of access / freedom of speech issue, in an almost David vs Goliath kind of fight, the real problem here is that there's now an established way to circumvent the flimsy user protection that Mastodon popularized, which is really bad for the vulnerable communities using it.

What Now?Look, Mastodon has been providing a half-measure to its users for years. Now it's the time to make things right: going into 2024, I think it's going to absolutely be a requirement to develop more robust forms of privacy options and access controls to empower users.

Bonfire is doing an incredible amount of research focused on this very problem, and Spritely has put forward some groundbreaking work on Object Capabilities in the recent past.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:40

By

Deepa Seetharaman

,

Keach Hagey

,

Berber Jin

and

Kate Linebaugh

Dec. 24, 2023 5:29 am ETMinutes after the board of OpenAI fired CEO Sam Altman, saying he failed to be truthful, he exchanged texts with Brian Chesky, the billionaire chief executive of Airbnb.

''So brutal,'' Altman wrote to his friend. Later that day, Chesky told Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI's biggest partner, ''Sam has the support of the Valley.'' It was no exaggeration.

Copyright (C)2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:35

The act of writing Code and writing Prose is the same. They both use the same mental processes, have language constructs and audiences, and require significant focus to be effective. I've written code and countless technical docs and articles for well over two decades, and lately started writing fiction. This article has been percolating in my head for years. Let's dig into how they are the same.

The same thing, by ChatGPTLanguageBoth Code and Prose are written in a language. My prose is in English, and while I've written code in C, Java and Perl, I'm most familiar with Python.

Counting the number of words in English is not simple, as this article by Merriam-Webster explains, but there are roughly 470,000 English words. A typical English speaker knows between 20,000 and 35,000 words, depending on their level of education.

Python, like most programming languages, has a very small set of keywords and constructs, and the real value is in the shared libraries, or pips in the Python world. PyPi, the repository of those libraries, has 498,650 projects, or pips, listed as of December 5, 2023. For context, a recent small project I was working on pulled in 68 of those.

It's a bit nonsensical to compare the number of words in English to the number of packages in PyPi, but we can agree that both English and Python are very rich languages, and no single person can reasonably understand the full scope of either language.

CompilersThe concept of a compiler is fairly simple: translate human-readable code into machine-readable instructions. In this example below, the python code is supposed to print ''Hello World!'' ten times, with the assembly code generated on the right. I can't read assembly code, it's a completely foreign language to me, but that's not important because the computer can read and execute it.

A screenshot from godbolt.orgWhen writing prose, the reader's brain becomes a compiler, translating the words from screen or paper into tangible thoughts and images, even if the words are not strictly correct. A great author can describe a scene so vividly that you can see it in your head even though the words are just pixels or ink.

My favorite line of prose is by Stephen Leacock in Gertrude the Governess ''He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.'' This is where admittedly my argument falls apart, since the last part of that line does not strictly make sense, yet our brains can see past it and conjure up with a vivid image that's captured the imagination of many readers. A compiler would throw an error like:

HorseError: Horse can only gallop in one direction

ChatGPT also struggles to make sense of it, this is the best it could do.

Galloping wildy, by ChatGPTAudienceEvery writer has an audience, even if they aren't aware of it or think explicitly about it.

A writer of prose might be writing a journal that will never be seen by anyone, and the audience is themselves. Or they may be writing a draft of a book that will hopefully catch a publisher's eyes. Or, like so much of my writing in my professional life, the audience for technical docs is made up of my peers who need to understand the reasons why something is built the way it is.

Software Developers have two audiences. The first is the compiler and runtime, after all a piece of software that won't compile or run, or worse do the wrong thing when running, is useless. But the far more important audience is the next developer who has to read or edit the code. It's very easy to write unreadable code, it's far more difficult to write code that another developer can easily understand. And beware, that next developer might be you. Countless times I've thought, who wrote this crap and a `git blame` (a whodunnit in software development) showed that I was the author a few years ago. Oof. If you want to see some terrible and beautiful examples of functional but completely unreadable code check out the Obfuscated C Code Contest. Once you've written code, someone has to maintain it, and that future developer is your audience.

Generative AI as an AideI recently started writing fiction, which is the quality of Vogon poetry and should never see the light of day, but that aside I found that ChatGPT made an excellent research assistant. My story took place in Ireland around the Great Famine in the 1840's, and much as I want to research my story by exploring Ireland for a few months, a more reasonable approach was to ask ChatGPT questions like:

what are some Irish first names in 1840'show much salary did a farm laborer earnhow much did a train ticket costwhat's the name of a ship that went from dublin to quebec in 1847It happily gave me answers. They may have been wrong answers, but ChatGPT responded fast enough for me to be able to continue writing without interruption or expensive overseas trips, knowing full well that if the Vogons ever decide to publish the writing they would have to do some serious fact checking.

On the code side I subscribed to GitHub Copilot, and it is very, very good. It definitely hallucinates at times, and occasionally is completely wrong. Where it shines is that it understands the context of what you are working on. In a real ''duh'' moment I forgot how to do multi-line strings in Python, and asked it ''how do make the string in line 43 multiline so it's not more than 120 chars long'' and it rewrote the line for me. I also asked it for an AWS CloudFormation template with some specific features, partially as a test and partially because I was lazy, and while there were a few errors, 95% of the template was correct. GitHub Copilot is like having a very senior developer sitting beside you, always available for questions.

A wizard looking over your shoulder, by ChatGPTGenerative AI has far too much hype today, and it can be wildly wrong, but it's an extra tool in the writer's toolbox that's worth spending some time to learn.

Environment and ToolsThe best writing and coding happens when the author can get into the flow, or into the zone, into the Deep Work space that Cal Newport writes about in his excellent book. Deep Work requires a quiet space without interruptions, and it takes practice to get into that mode. Unfortunately most software shops do not recognize this, distractions abound in the form of Slack/Teams/Email notifications and meetings, and software quality suffers as a result.

Tools for authors and developers are abundant and varied. For authors this may be pen and paper, Microsoft Word, or Google Docs or something else entirely. I'm using Google Docs for this article, because for the most part it Just Works' and stays out of my way. For software developers it's typically an IDE like IntelliJ or VSCode. I strongly believe that a specific tool should not be forced on writers, because that will wreck the writer's flow. If you're a leader employing writers of prose or code, those writers are your most expensive asset, and spending a few extra dollars on the tool of their choice will make them far more productive.

Writing is an ArtWriting prose is definitely an art, even potentially dry technical documentation can be artfully written. Many developers, including yours truly, will argue that writing code is also an art. There is a lot of very bad art, so much so that The Museum of Bad Art exists, and it's well worth a visit. The art of writing has also produced some spectacularly bad prose. If writing code is an art, the same can be said that there is some horrendously bad code out in the wild. The code submitted to the Obfuscated C Code Contest is purposely horrible, but most software developers have run across code so bad that it's better to throw it out and rewrite it rather than try to understand the mess and fix it. I'm sure some of my code falls into that category as well. But occasionally you stumble across a piece of code that is a work of art, it's easy to read and understand, it's efficient and well-documented, and masterful in all ways. When you see that and need to make a change to it, you're like an artist restoring a famous painting, trying desperately not to make it worse.

FailureOne of the tips in the 25 Tips for New Developers is ''Get comfortable with failure''. That applies to both code and prose. Writing code is hard, understanding the execution runtime can have a huge learning curve. Writing prose, especially fiction, can also be extremely hard. As I've proven to myself with my Vogon-esque story, inventing dialogue and creating characters from nothing can be extremely challenging, and failure is inevitable. I've ripped out entire sections of code and entire chapters of prose, starting over in both cases with knowledge learned in the failing, making me a better writer in the end.

Learning from each otherMedium has a lot of information on how to become a better writer. If writing code and prose is the same, then a lot of the advice targeting writers should also apply to software developers. This article on Stephen King's writing routine could easily be applied to writing software. Admittedly it's more difficult to create his environment in a paid software developer position, but it is possible. In the early stages of Arctic Wolf we talked extensively about how to create a good distraction-free environment, with large blocks of time that were meeting-free, and even entire meeting-free days. I had some of my most productive writing times in that era.

If you read the 25 Tips for New Developers article and substitute writing prose with code, much of the advice applies to new writers. Things like ''Find a Community'', ''Find a Niche'', ''Focus on the fundamentals first'', and ''Build projects you love'' all can be applied to writing of all kinds.

Now go and write!Werner Vogels, CTO of AWS, always ends his keynote speeches with ''Now go and build!'' It doesn't matter if you're writing code or prose'... Now go and write!

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:33

Free food, nap rooms, wellness walks, unlimited vacation days : such are the workaday perks of a job in tech. These perks, along with the six- and sometimes seven-figure salaries that accompany them, are, we've long been told, well-deserved. Not only are tech workers portrayed as feverishly hardworking, they are the epitome of innovation and productivity.

However, it's become apparent that they aren't as productive as we've been told to think. Ex-Meta employee Madelyn Machado recently posted a TikTok video claiming that she was getting paid $190,000 a year to do nothing. Another Meta employee, also on TikTok, posted that ''Meta was hiring people so that other companies couldn't have us, and then they were just kind of like hoarding us like Pok(C)mon cards.'' Over at Google, a company known to have pioneered the modern tech workplace, one designer complained of spending 40 percent of their time on ''the inefficien[cy] overhead of simply working at Google.'' Some report spending all day on tasks as simple as changing the color of a website button. Working the bare minimum while waiting for stock to vest is so common that Googlers call it ''resting and vesting.'' '‹

In an anonymous online poll on how many ''focused hours of work'' software engineers put in each day, 71 percent of the over four thousand respondents claimed to work six hours a day or less, while 12 percent said they did between one and two hours a day. During the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, it became common for tech workers to capitalize on all this free time by juggling multiple full-time remote jobs. According to the Wall Street Journal, many workers who balance two jobs do not even hit a regular forty-hour workload for both jobs combined. One software engineer reported logging between three and ten hours of actual work per week when working one job, with the rest of his time spent on pointless meetings and pretending to be busy. My own experience supports this trend: toward the end of my five-year tenure as a software engineer for Microsoft, I was working fewer than three hours a day. And of what little code I produced for them, none of it made any real impact on Microsoft's bottom line'--or the world at large.

For much of this century, optimism that technology would make the world a better place fueled the perception that Silicon Valley was the moral alternative to an extractive Wall Street'--that it was possible to make money, not at the expense of society but in service of it. In other words, many who joined the industry did so precisely because they thought that their work would be useful. Yet what we're now seeing is a lot of bullshit. If capitalism is supposed to be efficient and, guided by the invisible hand of the market, eliminate inefficiencies, how is it that the tech industry, the purported cradle of innovation, has become a redoubt of waste and unproductivity?

In tech, bullshit jobs'--which the late David Graeber defines as ''a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence'' even though they are obliged to pretend otherwise'--come mostly from bullshit projects. At Google, such projects are aplenty. According to Killed By Google, an archival project that documents discontinued Google services, products, devices, and apps, the company has discontinued nearly three hundred projects since its founding. These range from software systems to help businesses distribute and manage job applications (Hired by Google) to social media platforms that tried to mimic Facebook's success (Google+) to manifestly uncool wearable technology (Google Glass). But projects at that scale are far and few between. Many were small and hackathon-sized in ambition. All failed to make a splash on the balance sheet. These ''dead'' projects are also just the tip of the iceberg. The website only documents projects that have been publicly launched; untold more have been nixed before ever being announced.

Google has always had a founders-first mentality; it's ingrained into the company's DNA. According to a former employee, Google tries ''to reproduce the circumstances that led to their initial success'' by recreating the environment in which it was founded: On top of having the flexibility to decide when to work, how to work, and, in some cases, what to work on, Google allows employees to spend 20 percent of their paid working time on side projects. Senior employees can also pitch project ideas to upper-management and get funding to work on them, while junior employees are encouraged to ''take ownership'' over their assigned projects and to act as if they were the CTO of it. Google even has a literal startup incubator'--called Area 120'--for employees to pitch projects and start new companies.

Bullshit, it would appear, permeates every level of the organization.

To tech optimists, projects that don't immediately contribute to a company's bottom line are seen as sustaining the intrepid spirit of innovation'--necessary to achieve breakthrough technologies that could generate profit at some point in the future. As one employee puts it, Google is into ''generating luck,'' since they are willing to try ''a whole bunch of stuff in the hopes that a few efforts will pay off'' for the rest of their failed projects. Many will fail but those that succeed are supposed to rake in so much cash that they pay for the failures. But for this model of innovation to work as intended, employees have to believe in it; to the faithless, it has become little more than a means of personal advancement.

The compulsion to launch new projects in order to scale the corporate ladder has become so ubiquitous that employees call it the LPA cycle: launch, promo, abandon. ''The [promo] incentive throughout,'' as explained by a former employee, ''is to create a product, launch it, apply for promotion, and move on to bigger and better things as soon as possible.'' For years at Google, promotions weren't given at the discretion of an employee's manager; instead, employees initiated a promotion by compiling a ''promo packet'''--a collection of essays that explain why their contributions merit a promotion, corroborating evidence, and recommendations from teammates. This packet was then evaluated by upper-level engineers and management, who then determined an employee's ''impact.'' But because the vast majority of projects do not, in any direct way, contribute to revenue, impact can be difficult to assess. So the number of product launches became a proxy measure of value. As one Google employee posted on Hacker News: ''You cannot get promoted beyond a certain level in this place unless you 'launch' something big. So what do you get when you add all of these perverse incentives? Nine thousand, eight hundred and eighty-three chat apps.''

Writing promo packets became an artform at Google, one untethered to productivity. Instead of solving legitimate problems, many engineers found themselves gravitating toward tasks that could build their case for a promotion. This frequently led teams to build new products that compete internally, creating confusion for all parties involved, while pressing engineering tasks get neglected for months at a time. Sometimes, projects were simply redundant. One employee told me that ''there are some people who launch a project then switch to another org to launch the same project.'' The performance of usefulness thus replaced the act of actually being useful.

Even failed launches could land someone a promotion. One employee told me the story of his team's tech lead, who was ''super-gifted [and] one of the smartest engineers'' he has worked with, but ''going from project to project without a final launch is routine to the way he did things.'' Even after eight years at Google where he worked his way up to the title of staff engineer'--a highly respected role'--none of his code has ever made it to Google's production servers. Instead, he has swung from one failed or canceled project to the next, collecting promotions along the way. As the employee put it to me: ''It's literally failing upwards with no end in sight.''

Bullshit projects are abundant, in large part, because of the LPA cycle, and its proliferation is only aggravated by Google's army of increasingly despised middle managers. Employee dissatisfaction with middle management is hardly a new phenomenon. Writing in the 1990s, labor economist David Gordon argued that U.S. businesses are addicted to expanding the ranks of middle management, resulting in corporations that are ''Fat and Mean,'' which is also the title of his last book. According to Gordon, the waning competitiveness of American industries could be attributed to the bloating of middle managers who are at once expensive (fat) and prone to suppress wages (mean).

Google managers may not be mean, but they have'--by Gordon's definition'--become fat. In the early days of the company, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin thought that middle managers were a layer of bureaucracy that obstructed engineers from doing good work, so they kept the number of managers to a minimum'--and even experimented with eliminating them altogether. In 2009, they funded a multiyear research initiative called Project Oxygen to test whether managers mattered (the results indicated that, yes, apparently, they did). But while the project gave Google the data to justify the role of management, the ensuing lack of scrutiny over the role has resulted in bloat. Today, about 15 percent of Google's workforce is made up of middle managers, roughly one manager for every five to six employees, far surpassing the average manager to employee ratio in the service sector of one to fifteen. Where it was possible for a hundred engineers to report to a single manager in the aughts, most engineers are now placed on teams of no more than a dozen, frequently less.

The goal for managers, though, is to grow their teams as much and as quickly as possible since the number of people who report to them functions as a measure of their own ''productivity.'' One Googler told me that management is ''incentivized to grow their own team blindly, like a cancer cell.'' To demonstrate their own managerial prowess, they must sell the illusion that whatever it is their team is doing is good for business and users, even if it clearly isn't. In the absence of concrete metrics to evaluate a team's productivity, headcount becomes a key, if wildly inaccurate, metric. As a result, management is forced into a vicious cycle of upselling their team's importance in order to be allocated a higher headcount, meaning they then have to come up with new projects to justify the new headcount. The more workers there are, the more important the work must be, and the more important the work is, the more people must work on it.

Another major stumbling block to actual innovation is that projects that may not actually be bullshit get nixed all the time, transforming all that work into bullshit. The primary reason projects get cut is because of Google's pathological addiction to reorganization, or reorgs'--when organizational boundaries get shuffled often because of a power struggle among managers. Sometimes reorgs are productive and can result in the elimination of redundant work. However, reorgs aren't always economically motivated. If a manager can use a reorg to expand the size of their team, it is almost certainly the right career choice even if it doesn't make the company more efficient. For employees, this can inhibit their ability to perform their jobs, participate in launching projects, and, as a result, build their case for promotions. According to a why-I-quit-Google blog post by former employee Michael Lynch, this was a central concern:

Six weeks before the performance period ended, my project was canceled. Again. Actually, my whole team was canceled. This was a common enough occurrence at Google that there was a euphemism for it: a defrag . . . My teammates and I all had to start over in different areas of the company.

In some cases, workers anticipating a re-org may stop working altogether since they expect their project to get canned. Lynch sums it up: ''Google kept telling me that it couldn't judge my work until it saw me complete a project. Meanwhile, I couldn't complete any projects because Google kept interrupting them midway through and assigning me new ones.'' Between the drive for headcount and the never-ending square dance of reorgs, it's clear that middle management is just as responsible for waste as their promo-hungry employees. Bullshit, it would appear, permeates every level of the organization.

Innovation at Google is clearly in crisis. After establishing search advertising as a veritable cash cow, Google has spent hundreds of millions trying to reproduce that initial success'--with little to show for it. In its early years, the company quickly developed platforms like Gmail, Google Maps, among others that locked users into the company's ecosystem, driving traffic and ad spending. Today, the platform economy has calcified. The platforms that most people might want already exist; and major ones like Facebook and X, the platform previously known as Twitter, are even past their peak.

''Google got lucky 15 years ago and managed to turn on an absolutely massive firehose of money in ads,'' wrote a Google employee on HackerNews. This model of innovation is also the reason Google employs more people than it needs, according to the employee, who added that because the company may never ''strike it lucky [again] . . . they have to settle for attempting to starve potential competition of talent.'' For Google, however, this stagnation hasn't produced an urgent existential crisis: advertising revenue has grown to $224 billion from $43 billion in 2012. Today, Google has over 90 percent of the search market in the United States. With virtually no credible competition to threaten the firm's position, it can sit back and collect its fat paycheck.

Could it be that Google's era of abundance'--and abundant bullshit'--is coming to an end?

Google's monopoly position in search has long been a problem with critics demanding stronger antitrust regulation; this year, the U.S. government is finally taking Google to trial over illegal partnerships with phone makers (like Apple and Samsung) and browser companies (like Mozilla) that effectively block rival search engines from gaining a foothold. These partnerships mean that millions of people use Google's search engine by default, which has, according to the Justice Department, allowed the company to secure and maintain its monopoly. If Google loses, it could undermine the firm's advertising empire'--and set a precedent for curbing the power of other platform monopolies like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.

But even with stronger regulations, the manifold problems that these tech giants create for society will persist. Unlike the industrial firms that Marx and Smith wrote about, tech firms like Google differ in one key aspect: how they turn a profit. Where industrial firms extract profits from the gap between value produced and what workers get paid in wages, internet platforms rely foremost on rents, which generate profit on the basis of existing property, intellectual or otherwise. No additional labor is needed for each unit of output; profit thus becomes fundamentally extractive, or ''unproductive'' as Marx, or even classical economists like Smith and Ricardo, would say. For companies like Google, rent comes from owning the infrastructure through which we live our digital lives. The vast majority of Google's windfall profits'--$60 billion in 2022'--come from rents.

For workers, this model has grim implications. Once a cash-generating platform is built and attains a monopolistic position, the primary, and far less demanding, task becomes maintaining the platform. Moreover, where older firms might have to stave off competitors and engage in practices like predatory pricing to keep the competition at bay, platform monopolies have a built-in moat. Since a platform's value comes from its number of users'--a phenomenon known as the network effect'--competing against large platforms is nigh impossible since its monopoly position makes it inherently more useful. This means that workers are freed up to do other things.

Google's strategy has been to diversify revenue streams with new products. But this has clearly proven to be a bit of a challenge. Even after over two decades of R&D, advertising remains as Google's unmatched profit-maker, with their cloud division clocking only a distant second. ''Google hoovers up as much talent as they can in hopes that they'll strike it lucky and turn on a second or third revenue faucet,'' according to one Googler, ''but spoiler alert: they never will.''

Google itself might finally be beginning to come to terms with this. Last year, the company ended its practice of doing promo packets and has shifted to a more traditional approach where direct managers determine promotions. Earlier this year, the company also announced that it would be culling leadership and management roles. Management has also emphasized the idea of ''landing not just launching'' in response to the unchecked proliferation of bullshit projects throughout the company. After laying off roughly twelve thousand employees, or 6 percent of its workforce, in January, CEO Sundar Pichai vowed to increase focus and run on fewer resources. Could it be that Google's era of abundance'--and abundant bullshit'--is coming to an end?

Tech workers have had an unusual amount of agency over the past decade. In recent years, a historical shortage of labor in a sector awash with capital has emboldened them to demand more from their employers. Pinterest employee Ifeoma Ozoma, for example, exposed her employer for their discriminatory practices. Frances Haugen, a product manager at Facebook, disclosed internal documents to the Wall Street Journal and the Securities and Exchange Commission revealing the detrimental societal impacts of her employer's platform.

Others have participated in collective action. Kickstarter employees, for example, won their union and successfully bargained a contract in 2022. Amazon workers led multiple walkouts to support the global climate strike. Googlers unionized, fought against increasing corporate hostility, and challenged their company's unethical partnerships. Even in China, tech workers banded together to campaign against the 996'--9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week'--schedule that was expected of them. According to the Collective Action in Tech database, there have been hundreds of publicly reported actions since 2019, some involving thousands of people. While these are promising developments, tech workers still have a long way to go before they are organized enough to have enough leverage to counter structural problems in the industry.But as internet platforms enter a period of slowdown, if not outright decline, bullshit jobs and projects will become a justification for management to trim the fat and exert greater control over employees. Just this past summer, Google revamped its return-to-office policy to include badge tracking, which would allow the company to identify non-compliant employees. Venture capitalist Keith Robias also lambasted Google employees for being ''entitled'' and happy to ''sit at their desks and do nothing.'' If left unchallenged, management will'--as they have already started to do'--shift the balance of power back to their side.

Herein lies the quandary: If the power that workers have over their employers is the ability to withhold their labor, admitting to working a bullshit job robs them precisely of that power. Moreover, the fact that platforms profit from extracting rents rather than productive labor puts workers in an even worse position: withholding their labor put the kibosh on profits. The recent layoffs illustrate this point; Google laid off twelve thousand employees without a single one of their services faltering. Elon Musk cut X's workforce by 80 percent without crippling the platform's fundamental usability. In some cases, withholding tech workers' labor will have clear ramifications on platform services. New updates won't roll out. Bugs won't get fixed. The sustainability of the platform could come into question. However, if in aggregate, profits are generated through extractive practices that do not require the labor force these companies have built up, what leverage do these workers have? The obvious answer is that they can withhold future profits by halting the creation of new products and revenue streams. But even this won't work if the projects they work on are bullshit.

In the end, the tech workers themselves are not responsible for the proliferation of bullshit. Nevertheless, the work they do (or don't do) reveals that the problem, at its core, lies in the business model of the platform economy, one that depends not on productive labor but on rents. In our present economic paradigm, rents are undifferentiated from productive work where the creation of surplus value vis- -vis the exploitation of labor lies at the heart of profitability. Making explicit these differences, however, would reveal that these platforms are not all that different from the banks of Wall Street: they are not making value, they're taking it. And as long as this remains the underlying form of profit, tech firms' imaginary of a technological future will be limited to the fast and cheap profits of monopoly rents. This is at the center of tech's innovation crisis. That tech work is becoming bullshit is not the problem. The problem is that the companies themselves are bullshit.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:27

The personalized shot gives a standard melanoma treatment a huge boost.

Adding Moderna's in-development cancer vaccine to a standard treatment for melanoma dramatically reduces cancer survivors' risk of death or recurrence, according to newly shared trial data.

The challenge: To treat melanoma '-- the deadliest type of skin cancer '-- doctors typically start by surgically removing as much of the cancer as possible. They might then administer another treatment, such as chemo or radiation therapy, to kill any cancer cells they missed.

Even if a person is cancer-free after this, there's always a chance of the melanoma coming back, and certain types are considered high-risk for recurrence, including ones that are particularly thick or that had metastasized (spread to other parts of the body) prior to treatment.

''This is a pretty significant improvement, a pretty dramatic improvement over standard of care.''

Stephen HogeThe cancer vaccine: Moderna and pharma giant Merck are developing an mRNA-based cancer vaccine, mRNA-4157 (V940), for people who've had high-risk melanomas removed.

The vaccine works by instructing the body to make up to 34 ''neoantigens.'' These are proteins found only on the cancer cells, and Moderna personalizes the vaccine for each recipient so that it carries instructions for the neoantigens on their cancer cells.

The idea behind the vaccine is that, by prompting the body to make these proteins, it can prepare the immune system to quickly identify and attack any new cancer cells bearing them, preventing recurrence.

What's new? In the ongoing phase 2b KEYNOTE-942 study, Moderna and Merck are comparing the cancer vaccine's ability to prevent melanoma recurrence or death when combined with Keytruda, Merck's FDA-approved cancer treatment, to Keytruda alone.

In 2022, they reported that the combo therapy reduced high-risk patients' risk of recurrence or death by 44% compared to only Keytruda in the two years after treatment.

They've now announced that people who received both therapies were 49% less likely to experience recurrence or death a median of three years after treatment compared to people in the Keytruda-only group. They were also 62% less likely to experience distant metastasis or death.

''The durability of the responses is really strong '-- they're essentially rock solid through this time,'' Moderna President Stephen Hoge told Reuters. ''This is a pretty significant improvement, a pretty dramatic improvement over standard of care with just Keytruda alone.''

''We think that in some countries the product could be launched under accelerated approval by 2025.''

Stephane BancelLooking ahead: The KEYNOTE-942 study is relatively small, with just 157 participants, but Moderna and Merck have already launched a phase 3 trial for the combination cancer therapy that will include more than 1,000 people with high-risk melanoma.

The companies are also looking beyond melanoma, launching a phase 3 trial testing the cancer vaccine in people with non-small cell lung cancer '-- and if these trials go well, it might not be long before the personalized therapy reaches patients.

''We think that in some countries the product could be launched under accelerated approval by 2025,'' Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told AFP.

We'd love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at [email protected] .

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:15

A recent book by David Webb sheds new light on exactly what happened during the Great Depression. In Webb's view, it was a set up.

Webb is a successful former investment banker and hedge fund manager with experience at the highest levels of the financial system. He published The Great Taking a few months ago, and recently supplemented it with a video documentary. Thorough, concise, comprehensible and FREE. Why? Because he wants everyone to understand what's being done.

The Great Taking describes the roadmap to collapse the system, suppress the people, and seize all your assets. And it includes the receipts.

Webb's book illustrates, among other things, how changes in the Uniform Commercial Code converted asset ownership into a security entitlement. The ''entitlement'' designation made personal property a mere contractual claim. The ''entitled'' person is a ''beneficial'' owner, but not the legal one.

In the event a financial institution is insolvent, the legal owner is the ''entity that controls the security with a security interest.'' In essence, client assets belong to the banks. But it's much worse than that. This isn't simply a matter of losing your cash to a bank bail-in . The entire financial system has been wired for a controlled demolition.

Webb describes in detail how the trap was set, and how the Great Depression provides precedent. In 1933, FDR declared a ''Bank Holiday.'' By executive order, banks were closed. Later, only those approved by the Fed were allowed to reopen.

Thousands of banks were left to die. People with money in those disfavored institutions lost all of it, as well as anything they'd financed (houses, cars, businesses) that they now couldn't pay for. Then, a few ''chosen'' banks consolidated all the assets in the system.

As Webb shows, the cake has been baked for years. But this week came a sign it's coming out of the oven. Last Monday, Bloomberg admitted that measures taken to ostensibly ''protect the system'' actually amplify risk.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, G20 'leaders' mandated all standardized Over The Counter (OTC) derivatives be cleared through central counterparties (CCPs), ostensibly to reduce counter party risk and increase market transparency. The best known CCP in the US is the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which processes trillions of dollars of securities transactions each day.

Before 2012, OTC derivative trades were bi-lateral and counterparty risk was managed by parties to a transaction. When doing business directly with other firms, each had to make sure it was dealing with reliable parties. If they had a bad reputation or were not creditworthy, counterparties could consider them toxic and shut them out of trades. This, according to the wise G20 leadership, was too risky.

With the introduction of central clearing mandates, counterparty risk was shifted via CCPs away from the firms doing the deal to the system itself. Creditworthiness and reputation were replaced with collateral and complex models.

Brokers, banks, asset managers, hedge funds, corporations, insurance companies and other so-called "clearing parties" participate in the market by first posting collateral in the form of Initial Margin (IM) with the CCP. It's through this IM and a separate and much smaller Default Fund (DF) held at the CCP that counterparty risk is managed.

Shifting risk from individual parties to the collective is a recipe for trouble. But, as explained in a recent report from the BIS , it's worse than that. The structure of CCPs themselves can cause "Margin Spirals" and "wrong-way risk" in the event of market turbulence.

In flight-to-safety episodes, CCPs hike margin requirements. According to the BIS,

"Sudden and large IM hikes force deleveraging by derivative counterparties and can precipitate fire sales that lead to higher volatility and additional IM hikes in so-called margin spirals."

We've already gotten a taste of what this can look like. Similar margin spirals "occurred in early 2020 (Covid-19) and 2022 (invasion of Ukraine), reflecting the risk-sensitive nature of IM models ."

The second area of systemic risk is the dual use of government bonds as both collateral and as underlying assets in derivatives contracts. Volatility in the government bond market can lead to a demand for more collateral underlying the derivatives markets precisely when government bond prices are declining. Falling bond prices erode the value of the existing IM. Collateral demands skyrocket just as the value of current and would-be collateral is evaporating.

Again, the BIS:

Wrong-way risk dynamics appeared to play a role during the 2010''11 Irish sovereign debt crisis. At that time, investors liquidated their positions in Irish government bonds after a CCP raised the haircuts on such bonds when used as collateral. This led to lower prices of Irish government bonds triggering further haircuts, further position closures and ultimately a downward price spiral.

The BIS doesn't admit it, but Webb says the CCPs themselves are deliberately under-capitalized and designed to fail . The start-up of a new CCP is planned and pre-funded. When that happens, it'll be the ''secured creditors'' who will take control of ALL the underlying collateral.

Once more, the BIS:

'...to mutualise potential default losses in excess of IM, CCPs also require their members to contribute to a default fund (DF). As a result, CCPs are in command of large pools of liquid assets .

That ''large pool of liquid assets'' is the full universe of traded securities.

In a market collapse, the stocks and bonds you think you own will be sucked into the default fund (DF) as additional collateral for the evaporating value of the derivatives complex. This is ''The Great Taking''.

Buffett's famous line rings true: ''You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.'' Most of us are on the verge of learning that we're the ones without any clothes.

If you haven't read '' The Great Taking '' or watched the documentary, I recommend you pour yourself a stiff drink and watch it now:

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 21:55

a conversation WITH ERIK PRINCE

"Counterrevolution: The Coming Storms": Q&A with Erik Prince

There are two institutions through which the American empire exercises hegemonic power towards the world: the US dollar and the US military. Dollar supremacy gave rise to the post-WWII American standard of living, where more wealth was made available to more people than at any other time in recorded history. So long as the dollar was linked to gold, prosperity was widely distributed among Americans. It was the golden era of the middle class. Countries settled their international accounts in dollars that could be converted to gold at a fixed exchange rate of $35 per ounce, which was redeemable by the US government. That ended in 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window. It was never reopened and the US dollar became a fully fiat currency, which led to a new form of imperialism. Whereas under the gold reserve system America had to avoid trade deficits by maintaining strong industrial capacity and a manufacturing base, under the fiat system American central bankers create dollars from thin air which are then exchanged with other countries for real tangible goods like trucks and refrigerators. This is like having a goose that lays golden eggs. Because so many countries hold sizable reserves of US dollars, the US is able to export a sizable chunk of its monetary inflation, considerably boosting its own fiscal and economic position at the expense of poorer countries. The cost of having a goose that lays golden eggs is eternal vigilance against the foxes and coyotes. (That and the fact that your people start getting wrong ideas about the nature of geese).

The dollar has been a hegemon for so long because it reliably capped the rate of inflation at a reasonable 2% since the 1980s, and the US military's capability of ensuring its supremacy was unquestioned. Now, both of those are in question. We have seen double-digit inflation in the prices of basic necessities while also witnessing the rapid decay of the American military's readiness posture. Victory is no longer assured or inevitable. This, more than anything else, contributes to a palpable sense of American decline.

To understand what has gone wrong with America's military, one needs to look little further than the saga of the private military contractor Blackwater. The fact that Blackwater was even needed should have been a warning sign that the military had become too bureaucratic to accomplish its goals. Blackwater was a means to get the job done, which required sidestepping the bureaucracy. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater was responsible for the protection of federal government facilities in the disaster zone. Why was Blackwater securing the facilities instead of federal law enforcement officers? Because the labor union representing the officers stepped in and prevented them from being deployed. During the same period, Blackwater was villainized in the press and by liberals in Congress. Blackwater was not attacked despite its ability to make things happen, it was attacked because of its ability to make things happen. As a Brookings Institution report put it: ''the war in Iraq would not be possible without private military contractors.'' A primary goal of the Revolution is the transformation of the US military into a subservient, deracinated, politicized force. Essentially, to turn the military into the armed wing of the Democratic Party. For the Left, destroying America's ability to project power globally was the goal, and firms like Blackwater stood in their way.

I sat down with former Navy SEAL officer and founder of Blackwater Erik Prince to discuss the state of the US military, what he would do to fix it, and lessons from his life and career. Among his current projects is the '' Unplugged '' phone, a privacy-focused smartphone aimed at solving the security shortcomings of both Apple and Android operating systems. What follows is transcript of our conversation which took place on November 29, 2023.

***Note: The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Benjamin Braddock: What is your assessment of the current state of the military? Erik Prince: I would argue the peacetime military throwing more and more money at the organizations compounded bad habits, especially after 9/11. Compare what happened in World War II, when the officers that were largely in charge at the start of the war were not the ones in charge one, two, let alone four years later. After 9/11 there were never any housecleanings in the US military. We just added more and more to the bloat. I remember at one point in Iraq, there were ninety-three flag officers on the ground. Ninety-three, in an effort that was ultimately extremely expensive and that the US lost. Anyone who says that Iraq is a success story today is kidding themselves, because it is absolutely owned and subjugated by the Iranians. As the organization was going to war, I remember in 2005, they were stressed for manpower, trying to keep up this deployment rate for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The army usually promoted 3 out of 4 officers from Captain to Major, but this time they promoted 95%. In any organization, it's good to cut out the turds. In this case, all the turds got promoted and have gone on to higher and higher ranks, and that kind of systemic bloat and corruption of the organizations gave us what we have today. On top of that, there's both congressional pressure and congressional cowardice. Any organization that doesn't go through housecleanings will always get worse and worse. Even private organizations in a competitive environment have to clean house or they will eventually fail. The military just keeps getting more and more money thrown at it and compounding every bad habit. And so no one says ''You know, that was a really bad idea, let's not do that again''. The bad ideas just get perpetuated, and that's what we have today. I worry that if our military were actually stressed in a peer-to-peer fight, a winning outcome is not inevitable.

Benjamin Braddock: I often wonder if the country still has the will to win a war'...Erik Prince: That's because we have wars of convenience and not wars of extinction'...

Benjamin Braddock: I look at our foreign policy, how we'll take something like Ukraine and make it our plaything for a little while. Ukrainian flags were flown everywhere, even in remote places like rural West Virginia, but now that there's a new geopolitical flashpoint, it seems like Ukraine has become a Christmas dog dumped on the side of the road. What do you make of all this? Erik Prince: Ukraine is losing. They don't have enough manpower. They have deficiencies in weaponry and it's a slow grind to defeat. They need to find an offramp quickly to settle it or it's gonna get much, much worse for them. When you look at history, most of the carnage and the heavy losses occur in the last phases of a war. So bringing the war in Ukraine to a close quickly is essential. The American habit of not winning a war, not managing conflict, and not trying to get to some kind of diplomatic resolution, that is being imposed on Israel now. Israel has an opponent that says ''Yeah, we'll do October 7th again and again until there's no Jews left.'' That's what the Hamas leadership is saying. That's a war of tribal extinction. And the Biden administration is doing all it can to pressure Israel into making accommodations for people who want to kill them.

Benjamin Braddock: I think there's some of that internally, too. Erik Prince: Oh yes, there's plenty. Because Hamas, or better '' it goes much deeper than Hamas '' the Muslim Brotherhood's influence in America is far more prevalent than most people want to recognize. The single biggest outside donor to American universities is Qatar, and they have been working very hard with the Islamic student associations and CAIR and all the rest. They're almost like what the Sinn F(C)in was to the IRA. They're the fundraising/happy face of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, etc. It's basically a Sharia-supremacist paradigm.

Benjamin Braddock: What do you think are the risks of the United States' next direct conflict?Erik Prince: The British Empire ruled the seas in the 1800s. Then the British navy got fat, woke, and lazy, and just thought what was, was always what would be. And they faced a rising continental power in Germany, with all kinds of industrial capacity and capability. Then in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the British navy got spanked. It was not a clear victory for them at all: they took heavy casualties, and that was the beginning of the end of the British Empire and its influence. Similarly, we now have a US Navy that is very predictable and very wedded to the old ways of doing things; if they go sail a carrier battle group into close proximity of Taiwan, and the Chinese decide to send any of the tens of thousands of precision missiles they have against it, the US Navy gets spanked just like the British Navy did at the Battle of Jutland '' that means thousands of sailors' deaths, casualties of one or multiple warships, nuclear aircraft carriers, etc. It would have a devastating effect on the American psyche, and the rest of the Pacific Rim would realize that the Pax Americana that has been enjoyed for the past 70-80 years is over and that the new hegemon in that area is China.

That's on the conventional front. On the unconventional front, you have Iran, which is a society that puts thousands of stitches into a square inch of a rug. They're very deliberate, very methodical. What they're doing now with all their surrogates, whether it's grabbing ships off Yemen, their help to Hamas, or their significant power projection in Iraq, where they have about 200,000 people in the Hashd al-Sha'bi which is effectively a Hezbollah-like militia controlled by Iran, funded by the Iraqi government, using largely American weapons. And they are good at that. They have been moving thousands and thousands of military-age males into the United States. They send them to Venezuela, then north up through Mexico, and finally across the border. They have concentrations in L.A., New York, Washington, and Miami. If it came to a full-on shooting war with Iran, those cells would be activated and you would see a Hamas-like carnage inside the United States.

Benjamin Braddock: We're seeing a lot of new commercial and consumer technology making its way to the modern battlefield: from Hamas purchasing Israeli cell phone data to plan their October 7th attacks to $500 DJI drones being used in Ukraine to drop grenades onto sleeping Russians. I recall a conversation I had with a CIA officer back in 2015 where I brought up the consumer drones that were coming onto the market then. I asked him: ''What are you guys going to do when people start strapping these things with C4 and flying them into crowds? What's the countermeasure?'' I remember thinking to myself that they must have something interesting to counter this, but he replied: ''Well, we would just jam the signal!'' So I explained to him how I had already jailbroken a DJI Phantom 4 and programmed it to run pre-determined routes for cinematography purposes. It wouldn't be that difficult to turn into an autonomous weapon that couldn't be jammed. You'd have to hard kill it. All I got back was silence. Erik Prince: Absolutely. This is the danger of the over-bloated bubble the Pentagon has become: thinking their Kung-fu is the best in the world and that nobody else can match it. But the enemy always gets a vote. During the Cold War, the first strategic offset against the Soviets was nuclear strike. Then it became precision weapons. Well, everybody has precision weapons now, down to a ten-year-old kid with a drone that he can put something on to fly into a target. Anything that can be located in today's world can be targeted. So it's exceedingly dangerous for the US to think that our trillions of dollars of investment in stuff would last a long time in a modern battle space. And that's the thing: you don't have to win everywhere to win a battle. You have to win at the point of inflection.

Benjamin Braddock: What do you think it would take for the Pentagon to get ahead of the curve on this and evolve tactically? Or will it take a major catastrophe happening first? Erik Prince: Abrupt violent surprises do tend to make people correct their ways. But remember what the Pentagon's response to 9/11 was going to be: they said that the best that they brought to the President of the United States in the days after 9/11 were missiles, bombs, and a Ranger raid into Afghanistan in the days after. And they wanted to wait until the following April to do a mechanized invasion of Afghanistan via Pakistan. That was the best thing that the US military came up with while their headquarters was literally on fire. I mean Lincoln had to fire five heads of the Union Army to finally get somebody that would fight. So: any large organization is inherently bureaucratic, risk-averse, clueless, and it is generally breakthrough personalities '' out of sheer force of will '' who just fucking drive it into another direction. I mean, look at what an anomaly Patton was compared to the rest of his peers.

Benjamin Braddock: If Trump gets back into office, do you think there's a chance he will be able to get personalities like that into the Pentagon?Erik Prince: I think Trump never really controlled his national security apparatus for much of the administration '' the Agency, State, and the rest. He never really put any kind of transformative leaders there at all. My beef with Pompeo was that he never made any real changes at the Agency or the State Department. Mattis was a four-star general in a five-star capacity as SecDef. It was steady on course, as conventional as the day is long. So, there needs to be real transformation. And it's not just at a SecDef level, you need a Congress that is willing to change some of the laws as to how procurement is done, and to support a SecDef that would winnow out '' not just fire people '' but remove and consolidate billets, because we have the same amount of flag officers now that we did in WWII when we had 14 million men under arms then. Now we have 1.4 million, i.e. 10% of that. Yet we have the same amount of headquarters staff. And this is in the era of digital communications, video conferences, and the like, where you should be able to run flat and fast. Instead, we have bloat, upon bloat, upon bloat. And then you throw in the DEI, ESG, and all the other stuff that is not focusing on lethality. The military should be like a voracious attack dog that sits patiently until you tell it to go, and it goes. That's not our military today.

Erik Prince travels by helicopter to an Xe base near the Afghan-Pakistan border (September 2009)

Erik Prince travels by helicopter to an Xe base near the Afghan-Pakistan border (September 2009)

Benjamin Braddock: If you were Secretary of Defense, what would you do on day one?Erik Prince: I would fire every flag officer and make them submit a one-page document specifying why they should be re-hired. Simple, right? We would just ask them: what are you doing to fulfill our role to defend this country from threats? And then have them define that. There are two things an effective military commander does. One: they coordinate information. Meaning, they receive information, they send information. And two: they release energy. You move this ship from here to here'... you fire that weapon'... you, walk from here to here, etc. The problem is we have so much communications and so much nonsense that the right stuff doesn't get communicated very well. And second, our cost of energy is vastly higher than it needs to be and affordably can be. Look at how stressed the industrial base is just trying to keep up with the Ukrainian artillery burn. That's a country of 50 million people fighting on a limited front; and not only can the US not keep up, but also Spain, Britain, Germany, Czechoslovakia, all the countries that still make artillery shells. They can't keep up. They can't make enough casings, they can't even get propellant.

You know, the major contribution the US made to WWII was our industrial capacity. Think about who crushed the Nazis: it was the Soviets. They lost tens of millions of men. The Americans lost 250,000 in the European theater. But what made it possible for Zhukov to go from Moscow all the way to Berlin was 600,000 trucks and tens of thousands of aircraft from the US. So, leadership starts at the top. A culling of senior officers in shockingly deep and severe cuts would be the very first place to start. The elimination of billets. The wipeout of their staff. That's one of the things I learned operating in Iraq. We operated with about a 10-to-1 tooth-to-tail ratio. Meaning: ten teeth, one tail. The military is the inverse of that. If the military is there to, such as in Iraq, patrol, deter, fight the enemy, or train the locals, if you're not doing that, your tail pulls you under. And that's why our costs at Blackwater were infinitely different than what the military's were. And so blowing away staffs, reassigning people back into combat arms, and getting rid of all these soft nonsense positions, that's what makes the difference between a playground military and a combat military.

Benjamin Braddock: How does military contracting fit into this? Would you change anything there?Erik Prince: Sure. I remember telling the whole Blackwater team: We never, ever, ever want to look like, or behave like, our customer. We're here because they can't do the job. Don't look like them. Don't become bloated and slow and top-heavy and so on. What does the contract say? Ok. Do far more. Don't just meet the contract. We're there to over-satisfy. The problem with most contracting is that the big guys like to do cost-plus, so they maximize the costs because they get to add their fee to it.

I hate to sound like McNamara in Vietnam, but there's a lesson to be learned from the automotive industry in sourcing. I learned this from observing my dad's business growing up: you had the big three automakers in the '70s, and they were unionized and sloppy, so the quality wasn't very good, i.e. not that much great innovation was happening. Then the Japanese car companies showed up: Honda, Toyota, Nissan'... And everyone said: ''Nah, they will never be able to build cars here. Non-union? Are you kidding me?'' Well, they were wrong. They came, they competed, and did great, both on quality and price. And look at them today, they have forced automakers to suck a little less. (Laughs)

Benjamin Braddock: That may be why the pickup truck choice of insurgents the world over is the Toyota Hilux and not Dodge Rams or Chevy Silverados'...Erik Prince: Exactly. They work. I wish Toyota was in the defense business with that mentality. Think about this: quoting something for a military job vs an automotive job. The military job pricing will typically be 30 to 40% higher because of all the inane weird restrictions that are put on it. When you think about what a car does today vs what a car did 40 years ago'... I will say with respect to the Big Three in the United States or international automakers, the safety performance of what the automotive industry has done in internal combustion? Spectacular. I'm still a fan of internal combustion, and I will be the last one driving a gasoline engine.

Benjamin Braddock: What do you think we should do about the drug cartels that are in both Mexico and the United States? I have heard more than a few people say we should invade Mexico, but this strikes me as either insanity or stupidity. Erik Prince: Yes, we don't have a great track record of success at defeating those kind of insurgencies'...

I have some very definitive ideas on how to do this, which I won't get into much detail here because, why tip your hand? But the one thing to keep in mind is this: it's not an ideology to them. It's a business. Cartels are very lucrative businesses that operate outside of the rule of law. So the only way you can settle those disputes is outside the rule of law. And I'm not advocating legalization, but while the supply is certainly a problem, so is the demand. If we as a society continue to condone the cocaine, the meth, the heroin, the problem continues even if we crack down much harder on the supply side. The real national security problem is, as I'm sure you know, fentanyl, which you can trace back to the Chinese Communist Party organizing massive supply of precursor chemicals, shipping them to Venezuela, then from Venezuela to Mexico where it's fabricated into fentanyl and laced into all the other illegal drugs people are taking; and not just drug addicts, in some cases college kids, or just people doing stupid stuff, but its laced with fentanyl and it kills them. Last year alone it killed roughly 109,000 people, and it's on track to do much more than that this year. Now, that is something that should be, and can be fixed in kinetic means very quickly if only serious people were in charge and were given the mandate to do it. And it needs to go all the way back to the source of it: back to China.

Benjamin Braddock: What would your advice be to young and young-ish men at this moment in our history? Erik Prince: America suffers from affluenza. Things have gotten so comfortable that people have forgotten how to 'embrace the suck'. Meaning, it's good to get used to being uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Do something hard every day, something really hard that dogs you out after you've done it. Maybe something a little bit dangerous. Not stupid dangerous, but I've encouraged my kids to do uncomfortable things, that are hard, and not to coast. Helicopter parenting has taken so much away from young people. It's sad to see the numbers. Not many go out into the field and really hunt anymore. Ideally, traditions like hunting should be passed along to boys by their dads, but if not, by their uncles or their cousins. My dad was a really smart man and a hard worker, but he had no outdoor skills at all. That's because his dad died when he was thirteen during the Great Depression. He worked his ass off 40 hours a week in middle school and high school. He was managing a car dealership at age 16, so he never had time to go train in a field. But I learned a lot about the outdoor world from my cousins. My mom's brothers were outdoorsmen as well as each of their six kids. So there are lots of ways adults can help impress and teach kids to love that kind of life. My boys used to go to an all-boys Catholic school. I used to host campouts '' I should still, I just travel too much '' but occasionally we host a campout on the farm in the spring or in the fall, kill a couple of deers, and leave them hanging. Then as soon as the boys are out, we butcher them together. These are kids from suburban Montgomery County and Fairfax County seeing this deer hanging there, having to cut it up, and then being given meat that they have to cook. It's so good for kids to learn to be practical. I think we might have taken the division of labor a little too far.

Benjamin Braddock: Throughout your career, what would you say was your biggest pleasant surprise?Erik Prince: There were a lot of pleasant surprises. But probably building and running Blackwater. It was so satisfying to give people who had Michael Jordan-level skill sets in their field of military craft the chance to do it again. I remember when we were hired to protect Paul Bremer early in Iraq, around September 2003. I flew over on a C-5 with our Little Birds. It was the only time the DOD provided us lift at all, because they wanted us there quick. It was about ten years after Black Hawk Down and we had a lot of vets from TF-160 that were in Mogadishu for Black Hawk Down. So we landed in Baghdad, and as we were getting the helicopters off and we heard gunfire in the background, all very real, the vets turned to me and said, ''Mr. Prince, thank you. Thank you for giving us a chance to do what we are good at.'' And I still get that to this day. Even a couple of days ago coming back through Customs the CBP guy was a former Blackwater guy and he thanked me.

Benjamin Braddock: When you have job candidates like these, how do you assess competency? Erik Prince: That has morphed over the years, but when I first started Blackwater I wanted a guy who understood the military, but who was really focused on hospitality. And so I went to a big, high-dollar headhunting firm and told them I needed an ex-military guy doing something in hospitality. What they found was this great resume of an ex-Marine logistics officer who was doing franchise revamping for Holiday Inn. That was a disaster because he could not relate to the customers. He was much more of an office guy than a field guy. Then, Gary Jackson was hired as President. I might be known as the founder of Blackwater, and while I had the idea and put the money up, Gary Jackson was the guy who really built the organization. He was a warrant officer who didn't go to college, and he ran what became nearly a $1 billion company '' and he ran it well, because he could keep his ego in check and got comfortable hiring super-confident people, even more than him in certain areas. So I look for brave people, people that have good basic competencies in specific areas and that can be depended on. I steer away from hiring from Ivy League schools at this point. I'm just not very impressed with the product they're offering. I think back to when the founding fathers were around, the entrance exam for Harvard was to translate the Book of John from Greek into Latin. Compare that with today.

Benjamin Braddock: I could see that. One last question: what book do you like to gift the most to people? Erik Prince: Two books. One is The Myth of Capitalism, which resonates the most with me when it comes to what is wrong with the American economy. It points back to problems like allowing overconsolidation in the industries and the lack of competitiveness. For instance, how CEOs' pay in 1972 was 30 to 1, high man to low man. Now it's 360 to 1. But the CEOs haven't gotten twelve times better. So that nonsense must be fixed. And it either gets fixed with the rule of law or it's the French Revolution all over, with all the craziness that comes along with that.

The other book though that really gets me fired up is To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, from Achilles to Al Qaeda by Derek Leebaert. A lot of people, a lot of patriots are really hopeless at the state of things in America. They feel like it's impossible for us to fight this blob towards tyranny. And so I tell them, read that book and see what a few picked men throughout history have done to change the course of major battles, of civilizations, etc. I think ultimately, it is possible to turn things around.

(C) THE ART & LITERATURE FOUNDATION

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 18:09

Going into 2024, podcasting executives remain incredibly bullish on growth in the sector, with an eye to creating multiple revenue streams for creators and using artificial intelligence and video to expand the audience.

While the podcast sector faced some pullback in the past year, notably with layoffs and programming cuts at Spotify, Wondery CEO Jen Sargent and Conal Byrne, CEO of the iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group, say they believe there's still room for the medium to expand, particularly on a global level. And while the overall advertising market took a hit last year, both also see podcasting advertising growing into the next year, fueled by increasing demand.

In an effort to further globalize the medium, Byrne said he expects artificial intelligence to play a big role in the translation of podcasts into other languages. With the approval of the podcast creator, Byrne said iHeartMedia is looking to use AI to translate, transcribe and then voice content from its podcast archives, including How into multiple languages. The technology is not quite scalable yet, Bryne said, but the company will begin testing it soon, ahead of the technology being firmed up in the second half of 2024.

''It's not just meaningful for the creators to be able to access audiences in the language they want, but also to actually build businesses in those territories,'' Byrne said.

The Amazon-owned Wondery also plans to continue expanding globally, as listening grows in Latin America and Europe. The company is partnering with local creators and talent in countries such as Germany, Mexico and Brazil to produce content and also taking already popular shows, such as Business Wars or Killer Psyche, and adapting and localizing them for other countries.

As for the pace of dealmaking in 2024, Wondery CEO Jen Sargent says the company will continue at the same level, sticking to its plan of introducing a mixture of original shows and partnerships aimed at hitting specific genres or audiences on its strategic road map. Going into 2024, the company plans to expand into areas including comedy, sports, kids and family (including a recent deal with Dr. Seuss Enterprises), business and history.

''We will approach that strategy with a mix of originals and partner shows, and a lot of times, if it's something new for us, we'll look for best in class partner shows where there's talent that's already kind of cracked the audience or is already established in the genre to partner with so that we can get a really strong anchor in a category,'' Sargent said.

After finding that daily podcasting listening is on the rise, Byrne said his company is taking that data back to partners, such as Malcolm Gladwell's Pushkin Industries, to see whether they want to create more frequent content or find ways to serve listeners who have been choosing daily podcast listening over other activities, such as social media. It also may mean creating more podcasts.

''I definitely think it means don't slow down the launch of new shows,'' Bryne said. ''We continue to launch hundreds of new shows a year to test what's working.''

iHeartMedia is the top publisher of podcasts in the sector, with 884 active shows and a U.S. unique monthly audience of more than 33 million, meaning the number of audience members who stream or download a publisher's podcast content across all shows they produce, as of November 2023, according to podcast measurement platform Podtrac. Wondery is in second place, with 232 active shows and a U.S. unique monthly audience of more than 21.2 million. NPR, The New York Times and NBC News round out the top five publishers.

In addition to new global audiences, iHeartMedia is also looking to meet the growing demand among Black and Hispanic podcast listeners, which are among the fastest growing segments in the sector. The company is leaning into The Black Effect podcast network, which it owns with Charlemagne, and My Cultura, a joint venture with Wilmer Valderama and Enrique Santos, to meet these two sectors, but Byrne said he expects more growth to come.

Meanwhile, though Spotify has cut some of its podcast programming, the company is also expanding into new audiences with its recently launched audiobooks offering, and has made deals this year including partnering with The Unwell Network from Alex Cooper, the top female podcaster on Spotify and the host of Call Her Daddy.

The predicted deal paces comes as Sargent and Byrne say they expect advertising revenue to increase in 2024. Last year, some direct response clients were more constrained with their marketing budgets amid concern about the macroeconomic environment, but both Sargent and Byrne say this was largely offset by momentum from national brands last year, which they expect to continue into next year.

''I think that advertising in the space is really picking up for podcasting and more and more brands are getting into the space, partly because they want to reach these growing, engaged audiences, but also because the level of sophistication of podcasts and measurement and reporting and capabilities is growing,'' Sargent said.

In 2022, U.S. podcast ad revenues grew 26 percent year over year to reach $1.8 billion, according to the IAB U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue study. Revenues are projected to more than double between 2022-2025 to about $4 billion, according to the study.

While Sargent predicts the demand from advertisers in podcasting will lead more publishers to adopt or grow their ad-supported model, she's also seen continued growth in podcast subscriptions. With this momentum behind them, both Byrne and Sargent predict an expansion from podcasting into multiple revenue streams.

At Wondery, Sargent said the company already takes the approach of viewing every podcast with an eye to the potential for TV adaptations of the show, as the company has done with Dr. Death and WeCrashed, among others. The company is also using video podcasts, where a listener can watch and listen to shows such as Baby, This is Keke Palmer on YouTube, as an aspect of discovery to bring in more podcast listeners. These formulas don't work for all shows, but Sargent said it's something Wondery plans to tap into when it can.

''We probably have two dozen or so of our shows that are video podcasts. And we're expecting that in 2024 because it's been just such a great opportunity,'' she said.

At iHeartMedia, Byrne says the company has been looking for ways to broaden how its podcasts are packaged and sold to brands. He expects more creators to follow in the trajectory of Big Money Players, which the company co-owns with Will Ferrell and includes podcasts from Nikki Glaser and Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. iHeartMedia recently organized a live comedy showcase, under the Big Money Players banner, which they then turned into a broadcast radio hour and then was packaged back into the podcasts.

''It means that podcasters can look beyond the amount of impressions they're bringing to the table and start to package things a little bigger. We will be doing a lot more of that in 2024 for all of our creators,'' Byne said.

As for whether more mergers and acquisitions could be on the table in 2024, Sargent said it will partly depend on whether early stage companies can access capital to keep their business going. But she expects growth in the segment to fuel interest.

''I think the fact that podcasting is still rapidly growing and just continuing to get discovered by more and more listeners, that demand is going to just continue in terms of M&A,'' Sargent said.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 17:34

Dan O'Neill was 53 years ahead of his time.

In 1971, he launched a countercultural attack on Mickey Mouse. In his underground comic book, ''Air Pirates Funnies,'' the lovable mouse was seen smuggling drugs and performing oral sex on Minnie.

As O'Neill had hoped, Disney sued him for copyright infringement. He believed it was a legal parody. But after eight years in court, he was saddled with a judgment he could not pay. To stay out of prison, he agreed never to draw Mickey Mouse again.

''It's still a crime for me,'' said O'Neill, 81, in a phone interview from his home in Nevada City, Calif. ''If I draw a picture of Mickey Mouse, I owe Walt Disney a $190,000 fine, $10,000 more for legal fees, and a year in prison.''

Mickey and Minnie will enter the public domain on Jan. 1. From then on, Disney will no longer enjoy an exclusive copyright over the earliest versions of the characters. Underground cartoonists, filmmakers, novelists, songwriters '-- whoever '-- will be free to do what they want with them.

Mickey Mouse has long been a symbol in the copyright wars. Beyond the practical impact, the expiration '-- 95 years after his debut in the short film ''Steamboat Willie'' '-- is also a major symbolic milestone.

''This is a big one,'' said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain. ''It's generating so much excitement in the copyright community '-- it's finally happening.''

Every Jan. 1, Jenkins celebrates Public Domain Day, publishing a long list of works that are now free for artists to remix and reimagine. This year's list includes Tigger, who, like Mickey Mouse, made his first appearance in 1928. Other 1928 works include ''Lady Chatterley's Lover,'' ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' and Buster Keaton's ''The Cameraman.''

The celebrations are relatively recent. After Congress extended copyright terms in 1998, 20 years went by when nothing entered the public domain. Works began to lose copyright protection again in 2019, and since then, it's been open season on ''The Great Gatsby,'' ''Rhapsody in Blue'' and Winnie the Pooh.

The recent adaptations of those works could offer a preview of what awaits Mickey Mouse.

'''Just add zombies' appears to be a popular thing to do,'' Jenkins said.

''The Great Gatsby Undead'' popped up on Amazon on Jan. 2, 2021, followed by ''The Great Gatsby and the Zombies.''

There is also, of course, ''Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,'' the slasher film that made several critics' lists of the worst films of 2023. Released in the U.S. in February through distributor Fathom Events, the film commanded a fair amount of media attention for its shock value but to date has grossed only $5 million worldwide.

''A lot of people do lots of things,'' said Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor who has written and advocated extensively on copyright issues. ''This is the thing that people in Hollywood are not focused on. There's an extraordinary range of people who create just for the love of creativity.''

Air Pirates Funnies, from 1971, in which Mickey Mouse is portrayed as a drug smuggler.

Lessig may be as responsible as anyone for putting Mickey Mouse at the center of the copyright debate. He was the most prominent critic of the 20-year extension, without which Disney's copyright on its signature character would have expired in 2004.

Lessig called the law ''the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.'' He does not remember whether he coined the term or borrowed it from someone else, but he used it a lot, and it stuck.

Disney certainly lobbied for the bill. But some argue that its role in the legislation has been exaggerated, noting that many other copyright holders '-- including songwriters and the George Gershwin estate '-- also pushed for it.

''Disney's fearsome reputation was always a little overstated. They make a convenient bogeyman,'' said Zvi Rosen, a law professor at Southern Illinois University who argues that Disney's lobbying was not a major factor. ''It became really about Mickey Mouse in terms of the public debate once the law was passed.''

Lessig fought the extension all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that Congress might keep granting extensions, thwarting the constitutional mandate that copyrights be ''for limited times.'' He lost, 7-2, but the debate helped advance the movement for Creative Commons and an appreciation for the benefits of ''remix culture.''

''That movement awoke people to the essential need for balance in this,'' Lessig said. ''At the beginning of this fight, it was a simple battle between the pirates and the property owners. And by the end of that period, people recognized that there's a much wider range of interests that were involved here, like education and access to knowledge.''

As the clock began to wind down on the extension in the 2010s, some anticipated that Disney and other copyright holders would push for another one. But that never materialized.

Some argue that copyright holders recognized that another extension would face a storm of protest, and so they didn't try. At some point, it became clear that Mickey Mouse really would fall into the public domain.

''It's significant,'' Lessig said. ''Let's hope it's the opening of a new chapter.''

He continues to support reforms that would free up a vast body of cultural output that remains inaccessible because it lacks commercial value and its ownership cannot be determined.

''The biggest weakness in copyright is that we have no way to know who owns what,'' Lessig said. ''It's the most inefficient property system known to man.''

Walt Disney with Mickey and Minnie Mouse Courtesy of PBS (C) Cond(C) Nast Archive/Corbis

Disney will still have ways to protect Mickey Mouse after Jan. 1. The company will retain copyrights in the character's more modern versions for a few more years. And it has said that it will continue to defend its trademarks, which could limit what creators are able to do.

''This is very different than Winnie the Pooh,'' said Justin Hughes, a professor who specializes in intellectual property at Loyola Law School. ''When Winnie the Pooh fell into the public domain, you could have 'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.'''

He argued there is less leeway with Mickey Mouse because it is such a strong trademark. In 2007, Walt Disney Animation Studios adapted a clip from ''Steamboat Willie'' as its logo, strengthening its claim to the earliest version of Mickey.

''There will be some legitimate public domain uses,'' Hughes said. ''But people will have to be very careful that they don't trigger a legitimate trademark claim by Disney.''

Jenkins, however, rejects the idea that Disney can use trademark law to shut down creative expression. Trademarks are intended to protect brands. So long as artists do not try to pass off their work as coming from Disney, she said, they should not have a trademark issue.

''Do not go start selling Disney merchandise,'' she added.

Rosen said it may take litigation to settle the issue.

''Someone is going to make something Disney has to sue over,'' he said. ''It's almost inevitable.''

Disney's reputation for zealous copyright enforcement goes back decades, at least to the ''Air Pirates'' case. It was cemented by two incidents in 1989. First, Disney sued the Academy Awards for an unauthorized portrayal of Snow White. Then, it demanded the removal of murals featuring Disney characters from the walls of three day care centers in Hallandale, Fla.

But in recent years, Disney's copyright suits have slowed to a trickle.

Studios have become more concerned with online piracy, which they typically don't fight in court. Instead, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, studios submit takedown notices '-- millions of them '-- to online platforms.

Copyright holders wish that process were better at stamping out piracy. According to Rosen, they are far more focused on getting Congress to reform that system than they are on extending copyright terms.

''That's clearly a higher priority,'' he said.

''Steamboat Willie'' has been available for free on YouTube for more than a decade, so Disney may not have much to lose from others' reuse of it. And without the thrill of the forbidden, Mickey may not hold that much appeal for parodists either.

''I doubt contemporary alternative cartoonists would see much gratification in satirizing Mickey,'' said Bob Levin, author of ''The Pirates and the Mouse: Disney's War Against the Counterculture.''

O'Neill said he targeted Mickey because he associated the mouse with Walt Disney's conservative politics and with President Nixon. For others, he represents consumerism, cultural imperialism, or childhood nostalgia. Starting on Jan. 1, he will be free for all to reinterpret.

''We're stuck with Mickey Mouse,'' O'Neill said. ''He belongs to everybody.''

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 17:20

Concerns were raised after the illness was detected in animals in Yellowstone Park

Researchers in the US have sounded the alarm over a spike in cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) among wildlife across North America, warning that the deadly virus could spread to humans.

CWD, also known as 'zombie deer disease', is caused by prions '' abnormal transmissible pathogenic agents which alter their host's brain and nervous systems, and leave the infected animal drooling, lethargic, stumbling, and with a blank stare.

Experts described the disease as a ''slow-moving disaster'' in a recent report by The Guardian. Dr. Cory Anderson, a CWD researcher at the University of Minnesota, explained that the illness is ''invariably fatal, incurable, and highly contagious,'' warning it is nearly impossible to eradicate once it infects an environment. Scientists have also noted that CWD is resistant to disinfectants, formaldehyde, radiation, and incineration at 600C, and can persist in dirt or on surfaces for years.

Last year, the disease was reportedly detected in some 800 samples collected from deer, elk, and moose across the state of Wyoming, according to Breanna Ball of the state's Game and Fish Department. She told The Guardian that the infection rate was an increase on previous years.

Scientists are particularly concerned that the disease has apparently made its way to Yellowstone National Park in recent months. Former chief of animal health for the US Federal Fish & Wildlife service, Dr. Thomas Roffe, explained that the park's ecosystem currently supports the greatest and most diverse array of large wild mammals on the continent.

''It's a disease that has huge ecological implications,'' Roffe said, noting that the failure to curb its spread means that millions of people who visit Yellowstone each year might soon see the consequences of CWD for themselves.

A US Geological Survey published earlier this month claimed that the disease is currently present in 32 states as well as three Canadian provinces.

So far there have been no reported cases of CWD spreading to people, even though up to 15,000 infected animals were estimated to have been consumed by humans in 2017, according to the Alliance for Public Wildlife.

However, epidemiologists in the US and Canada have warned that it could only be a matter of time as the disease is part of a cluster of fatal neurological disorders that includes the infamous mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

An outbreak of BSE in the UK in the 1980s and '90s led to the slaughter of over 4 million head of cattle and the deaths of 178 people who contracted the human variant of the disease, vCJD, through eating infected beef.

''We're talking about the potential of something similar occurring. No one is saying that it's definitely going to happen, but it's important for people to be prepared,'' Anderson said.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 17:14

Apple has opened negotiations in recent weeks with major news and publishing organizations, seeking permission to use their material in the company's development of generative artificial intelligence systems, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

The technology giant has floated multiyear deals worth at least $50 million to license the archives of news articles, said the people with knowledge of talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. The news organizations contacted by Apple include Cond(C) Nast, publisher of Vogue and The New Yorker; NBC News; and IAC, which owns People, The Daily Beast and Better Homes and Gardens.

The negotiations mark one of the earliest examples of how Apple is trying to catch up to rivals in the race to develop generative A.I., which allows computers to create images and chat like a human. The technology, which artificial intelligence experts refer to as neural networks, is built by using troves of photos or digital text to recognize patterns. By analyzing thousands of cat photos, for instance, a computer can learn to recognize a cat.

Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Meta and other companies have released chatbots and other products built with the technology. The tools could change the way people work and generate billions of dollars in sales.

But Apple has been absent from the public discussion of A.I. Its virtual assistant, Siri, has remained largely stagnant in the decade since its release.

A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment. During a call with analysts last month, Tim Cook, the company's chief executive, said Apple has work ''going on'' connected to A.I. but declined to elaborate.

Some of the publishers contacted by Apple were lukewarm on the overture. After years of on-again-off-again commercial deals with tech companies like Meta, the owner of Facebook, publishers have grown wary of jumping into business with Silicon Valley.

Several publishing executives were concerned that Apple's terms were too expansive, according to three people familiar with the negotiations. The initial pitch covered broad licensing of publishers' archives of published content, with publishers potentially on the hook for any legal liabilities that could stem from Apple's use of their content.

Apple was also vague about how it intended to apply generative A.I. to the news industry, the people said, a potential competitive risk given Apple's substantial audience for news on its devices.

Still, some news executives were optimistic that Apple's approach might eventually lead to a meaningful partnership. Two people familiar with the discussions struck a positive note on the long-term prospects of a deal, contrasting Apple's approach of asking for permission with behavior from other artificial intelligence-enabled companies, which have been accused of seeking licensing deals with news organizations after they had already used their content to train its generative models.

In recent years, Apple executives have been debating how to accumulate the data needed to build generative A.I. products, according to two people familiar with the work. Some of its rivals have been accused of taking written material from across the internet without the permission of the artists, writers and coders who created it, leading to several copyright lawsuits.

Apple has been reluctant to take information from the internet, partly because of its commitment to privacy. After it acquired the social analytics start-up Topsy in 2013, Apple's leadership asked that Topsy stop collecting information from Twitter, saying that doing so violated the company's policy against collecting data on Apple customers, who might also post on the social media site, these two people said.

The explosion of artificial intelligence has raised alarms among news executives, many of whom are concerned that generative A.I. products like OpenAI's ChatGPT could draw in readers who would otherwise consume their news on platforms for their own subscribers and advertisers.

Print news organizations, which decades ago saw their lucrative classifieds business demolished by online competitors, have been particularly wary about striking deals with A.I. organizations, engaging cautiously with an eye toward preserving their existing businesses.

In a statement, an OpenAI spokesman said that the company respects ''the rights of content creators and owners and believes they should benefit from A.I. technology,'' citing its recent deals with the American Journalism Project and the German publisher Axel Springer.

''We're optimistic we will continue to find mutually beneficial ways to work together in support of a rich news ecosystem,'' the OpenAI spokesman said.

The post Apple Explores A.I. Deals With News Publishers appeared first on New York Times.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:58

An uber-wealthy Connecticut-born tech entrepreneur and his activist wife have been funding the group who are organizing pro-Palestine protests all across the US.

Neville Roy Singham and his partner Jodie Evans, 69, have spilled at least $20million into the firm that is a major supporter of left-wing causes in the US - including a globe-spanning network of pro-China propaganda and anti-Israel protests.

Singham, who was once probed by the FBI in the 1970s for his 'inimical' connections in the US, has been the main funder of The People's Forum since 2017.

The firm has co-organized at least four pro-Palestine protests since October 7.

Along with his wife Evans, the Marxist pair have donated over $20.4 million to The People's Forum from 2017 to 2022, according to the Free Press. They money was moved through shell organizations and advisory groups.

Neville Roy Singham (right) and his partner Jodie Evans, 69, have spilled at least $20million into the firm that is a major supporter of left-wing causes in the US - including a globe-spanning network of pro-China and anti-Israel propaganda

Jodie Evans is pictured at a pro-Palestine rally in Los Angeles, California, on October 22

The first of many Palestinian protests - pictured in NYC's Times Sqaure on October 8 before Israel had even retailiated - was co-organized by The People's Forum

The People's Forum, based in Midtown Manhattan on 37th Street, has $13.6 million in total assets and employs 13 people.

One of the rallies that they organized was in New York City's Times Square, which took place on October 8 before Israel had retailiated or counted its 1,400 dead.

Hamas, the terror group who have made clear that their aim is the destruction of Israel and death of Jewish people, murdered hundreds at a peace festival - and took dozens of women and children, including Americans, hostage into Gaza.

The People's Forum also organized 'Shut It Down for Palestine' protests on November 4 and 9 - and people at the protest entered the lobby of asset management giant BlackRock in a bid to end US support for Israel.

And the company's executive director, Manolo De Los Sar, even called the Washington DC 'March for Israel' this week a 'Pro-Genocide March.'

On October 22, Jodie herself posted images at a pro-Palestine rally in Los Angeles, holding a sign reading 'Free free Palestine.' She wrote: 'Stay in the streets for our humanity - Biden has lost his heart and mind - a genocide is a crime against humanity. He must call for a ceasefire and the occupation must end.'

Singham is also the son of leftist Sri Lankan academic Archibald Singham. He grew up in Connecticut and Jamaica. When he was 17, he joined the League of Revolutionary Black Workers

And on October 7 - hours after terrorist organization Hamas slaughtered 1,400 unarmed Israeli citizens - Jodie wrote: 'Long live self-determination! Long live resistance! Free free Palestine! Long live Palestine!'

The People's Forum says that it is a 'movement incubator for working class and marginalized communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad.'

Singham made his money though his software consulting company, Thoughtworks, that he launched in 1993 in Chicago.

He sold it to private equity firm Apax Partners for $785 million - in the same year he started funding The People's Forum.

As well as organizing the protests, which have been spewing anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric over the last five weeks, Singham, 69, runs a 'lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda' around the world, according to a New York Times investigation.

Singham's millions in funding, funneled through non-descript US non-profits, also back a liberal think-tank in Massachusetts , a political party in South Africa , and news organizations in India and Brazil

The report identified Singham, an avowed socialist, as a major backer of trans-Atlantic activist collective No Cold War as well as Code Pink, the US anti-war group that once criticized China's rights abuses, but now parrots Chinese Communist Party talking points.

Singham's millions in funding, funneled through non-descript US non-profits, also back a liberal think-tank in Massachusetts, a political party in South Africa, and news organizations in India and Brazil, according to the report.

The groups in the network often appear to blend traditional progressive concerns, such as climate change and racial justice, with strident pro-China talking points, including defending the detention of ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and bashing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

According to the Times, the groups often share staff and offices, promote each others' social media content, and interview one another's representatives without disclosing their ties.

Singham, who lives in Shanghai, shares an office there with a Chinese media company called Maku Group, which appears to be dedicated to producing foreign propaganda.

In a statement to the Times, Singham said: 'I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives.'

'I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views,' he added.

Singham is also the son of leftist Sri Lankan academic Archibald Singham. He grew up in Connecticut and Jamaica. When he was 17, he joined the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.

Singham, who lives in Shanghai, shares an office there with a Chinese media company called Maku Group, which appears to be dedicated to producing foreign propaganda

Jodie and Neville are pictured at their Bob Marley-themed wedding in Jamaica in 2017. Guests included socialist ice cream behemoth Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry's

The couple are pictured at a rally

He has even been investigated by the FBI, according to his own blog.

In 1974 Singham they looked into him as a 'potentially dangerous because of background, emotional instabilities or activity in groups engaged in activities inimical to the U.S.'

He went to Howard University and graduated with a political science degree.

In 2017, he married Jodie Evans, a former Democratic political adviser and the co-founder of Code Pink, the anti-war group founded in 2002 to oppose the US invasion of Iraq.

Six months after his Bob Marley-themed wedding in Jamaica, which was attended by socialist ice cream behemoth Ben Cohen, he sold ThoughtWorks for $785 million.

Since then, Code Pink has received about $1.4 million in donations from groups linked to Singham, according to the Times, accounting for about a quarter of the group's donations.

Evans, once a critic of China's authoritarian ruling Communist Party, has changed her tune. She used to be married to a multimillionaire data scientist before marrying Singham.

She now vocally supports China, branding the ethnic minority Uyghurs as terrorists and supporting their detention in one 2021 video.

In February, Code Pink activists disrupted a House a hearing of a special House committee dedicated to countering threats from China.

One activist held up a sign that read 'China is not our enemy,' while another held up a similar hand-drawn sign that said 'Stop Asian Hate,' a slogan that first arose to protest racist violence against Asian Americans.

Code Pink did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday.

Evans told the Times that Code Pink had never taken money from any government, saying: 'I deny your suggestion that I follow the direction of any political party, my husband or any other government or their representatives.'

'I have always followed my values,' she added.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:48

Table of ContentsKey SectionsKey PointsWhat's All the Buzz About Using AI in Bitcoin Mining?AI technologies promise to revolutionize Bitcoin mining by making the process faster and more efficient.Why is AI the Future of Bitcoin Mining?AI improves mining efficiency by providing real-time insights, optimizing energy usage and predicting potential hardware breakdowns. AI services offer mining companies a means of diversification.How Does AI Tech Streamline Bitcoin Mining?AI-based algorithms and hardware can revamp the entire mining process. Integration of AI can lead to energy-efficient practices and a greener future in mining.Show Me the Money: What are the Financials Behind AI-Driven Bitcoin Mining?While integrating AI into mining could lead to more earnings, it also presents considerable upfront costs and complexity. Market trends are favorable towards diversification using AI in mining, with regulatory conditions also playing a role.Are We Playing Fair? Ethical Angles in AI Bitcoin MiningAI's role in mining affects job creation and environmental sustainability. There might be high costs and challenging tech limits, but the potential benefits, such as increased efficiency and sustainability, are considerable.Is AI the Green Lantern of Bitcoin Mining?AI's application in Bitcoin mining is leading to real advancements in 'green' mining projects. This positions AI as a critical element for achieving sustainability in the crypto landscape.What Lies Ahead? AI and Future Tech in Bitcoin MiningThe future of Bitcoin mining could involve the integration of AI and quantum computing, leading to faster, smarter, and more sustainable practices. Mining companies are also adapting to the shifting landscape by diversifying into AI-driven solutions and strategies.What's All the Buzz About Using AI in Bitcoin Mining?Heard whispers about using an AI computer for Bitcoin mining and scratching your head? Why's everyone so giddy? Here's the gist: Traditional mining methods are like hamsters on a wheel'--cute but ineffective in the long run.

AI computers are the game-changers, promising to overhaul how we dig for digital gold. They're not just faster; they're revolutionizing the mining landscape, making every calculation and decision astute. In essence, AI computing in Bitcoin mining is the high-speed train leaving the station, and you don't want to be left holding a horse and buggy.

Why is AI the Future of Bitcoin Mining?The Evolution of Mining Hardware: From CPUs and GPUs to AIRemember when Bitcoin mining was just about CPUs and GPUs? Those days are fading fast. Financial dips have made miners rethink their strategies. Hive Blockchain mining company posted a net loss of $236.4 million in 2023, nudging them to repurpose 38,000 GPUs from crypto to AI.

Likewise, Hut 8 has started leveraging their GPU assets for High-Performance Computing (HPC), a realm that includes AI. We're even seeing purpose-built hardware like the Intel Developer Cloud, decked out with advanced CPUs, GPUs, and Intel Gaudi processors geared for deep learning. So, what's next? You guessed it, artificial intelligence mining.

AI Algorithms: Turbocharging Bitcoin MiningAI isn't just a fancy tool; it's a game changer for mining efficiency. Real-time insights, anyone? AI provides those in spades, refining algorithms and thereby juicing up the mining process. Then comes predictive maintenance'--AI alerts you about potential hardware breakdowns so you can act before stuff hits the fan.

Energy costs eating into your profits? AI algorithms refine and learn, optimizing energy usage, which is a win-win for both your wallet and Mother Earth. And let's not forget smart hash searches; instead of dumb luck, AI algorithms can intelligently scour for winning hashes, propelling ASIC miners to new heights.

The Paradigm Shift: More Than Just MiningHold onto your hats, we're entering a new era. Mining companies are no longer putting all their eggs in the Bitcoin basket; they're diversifying with AI services to dodge those Bitcoin market mood swings. All those GPUs you've stockpiled for Bitcoin? Now they're pulling double duty, serving AI customers without breaking a sweat.

Even better, Bitcoin miners are becoming eco warriors, absorbing excess energy and converting waste into clean energy through innovative AI technologies like Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). And let's talk about cloud mining platforms'--they're becoming more efficient and affordable thanks to AI, opening doors for more players to jump into Bitcoin mining.

Artificial intelligence mining is not just the future, it's the now. It's flipping the script on traditional mining techniques, boosting efficiency and throwing in some sustainability for good measure. Welcome to the new age of Bitcoin mining.

How Does AI Tech Streamline Bitcoin Mining?Crunching the numbers, burning the midnight oil'--Bitcoin mining isn't what it used to be. It's evolving, and AI's the game-changer. So let's dive into the nitty-gritty of how using an AI computer for Bitcoin mining is shifting the landscape.

Nuts and Bolts: AI Algorithms That Rev Up MiningWe're not talking basic upgrades. AI's got the smarts to revamp mining from the ground up. One word for you: Reinforcement Learning (RL). Imagine a learning system constantly tinkering to achieve peak performance. A study shows RL can crank out optimal mining strategies, maximizing those sweet rewards.

And don't forget AI's knack for data-crunching. Real-time insights and smarter algorithms? Check and double-check. AI's got you covered on strategic planning and overall sustainability in crypto mining.

Toolkit Essentials: AI Mining's Hardware MVPsYou've got choices when it comes to hardware for AI-driven crypto mining. But let's not get lost in the noise. Here's a table that lays out the specs of the cr¨me de la cr¨me in ASIC Miners and GPUs, so you can see what you're really getting:

Hardware TypeModelHash Rate (TH/s)Power Consumption (kW)Efficiency (J/TH)Special MentionsASIC MinerAntminer T17+64 --Highly efficient in power consumptionASIC MinerAntminer S17+70---ASIC MinerAntminer S19k Pro120--Super-efficient Bitcoin mining rigASIC MinerAntminer S19 Pro1103.2529.5-GPUNvidia GPUs (Generic)VariesVariesVariesHive Blockchain invested $66MEfficiency, Meet AI: A Symbiotic RelationshipOkay, let's get real about energy. Companies like Redwater Acquisition Corp are trying to make mining less of an energy hog. How? By harnessing AI to cut down on the carbon footprint. Reports by industry bigwigs like KPMG even suggest that AI could turn Bitcoin mining into an ally of renewable energy. Disbelievers, eat your heart out.

The Green Revolution: AI's Sustainable Makeover for MiningThere's this buzz that AI might just be the eco-hero we've been waiting for. Those horror stories about Bitcoin's energy drain? AI could flip the script, becoming more energy-efficient as the tech matures. Companies are catching on, blending AI and traditional mining to carve out a greener, more efficient future.

Show Me the Money: What are the Financials Behind AI-Driven Bitcoin Mining?Intrigued by the blend of AI and Bitcoin mining, huh? Let's get down to brass tacks and see where the money really flows.

ROI: The Financial Ups and Downs of AI in Bitcoin MiningThinking about ROI is like peeking into your future financial health. Here's the lowdown on why AI in mining might be your next winning'--or losing'--lottery ticket.

Pros:Diversification and Risk Management: Companies like Hut 8 and Iris Energy are mixing AI into their mining game. It's a smooth move that could shield them from crypto's wild mood swings.Potential for Fatter Wallets: HIVE Digital chairman, Frank Holmes, hints at AI potentially outearning regular Bitcoin mining. Specifically, if Bitcoin mining on an ASIC chip could earn 10 cents an hour, AI operations could potentially offer a higher earning rate.Better Use of Hardware: Nvidia's sales are skyrocketing. Why? Their hardware is a double-threat, good for AI and Bitcoin mining.Cons:Big Bucks Upfront: Building an AI data center for mining? Think 10 to 20 times the cost of a standard Bitcoin site. Ouch.Nerd-Level Complexity: You'll need top-tier tech brains to integrate AI, adding to costs.ROI: A Mystery Box: Despite bullish anticipation, the actual returns on mixing AI with Bitcoin mining are still under wraps. It's a gamble, influenced by electric bills, the Bitcoin market, and how smart your AI really is.Spotting Trends: Why the Scales are Tipping Towards AI in MiningWondering why everyone's buzzing about AI in mining? Let's dig into the market trends pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Do-It-All Data Centers: Unlike specialized Bitcoin gear, Nvidia GPUs can juggle AI, gaming, and more. A Swiss Army knife in a world of butter knives.Cost Dynamics: Riot Platforms says a top-notch Bitcoin site costs $833,000 per megawatt. That's a pricey dinner ticket, making versatile AI look tasty.Switching Lanes for Profits: Big Bitcoin miners are eyeing AI chips for steadier yields. It's like swapping a rollercoaster for a merry-go-round.Regulatory Wrinkles Affecting Your AI Mining BetRegulation. It's that annoying alarm clock that can either wake you up to opportunity or a nightmare. Let's scope out the rules shaping your AI mining gamble.

Global Policymaking in Motion: Financial Stability Board and Basel Committee are sculpting crypto norms. The EU's near-final Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation is a game-changer. Dubai aims to be the first virtual asset authority.State-Specific Laws in the U.S.: U.S. states like Montana have crypto-friendly laws, detailing rules down to electricity use. Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Missouri are also on board.Ready to dive into AI and Bitcoin mining? Your bet could be a goldmine or a money pit. It's a dynamic landscape, so keep an eye on regulation and market trends. Make sure your portfolio can weather both sun and storms.

Are We Playing Fair? Ethical Angles in AI Bitcoin MiningThe Allure and Pitfalls: AI's Role in Bitcoin MiningBooming Workload & Financial GainsImagine your Bitcoin mining rig suddenly diversifying into AI tasks, gaming, and more. Versatile, right? Companies like Nvidia are cashing in as demand for such multifaceted hardware skyrockets. Miners have a financial incentive to hop onto the AI bandwagon.

The Hurdles: Sky-High Costs and Tech LimitsNot so fast. Converting a mining setup into an AI data center is a financial mammoth. You're staring at costs soaring up to 20 times per megawatt compared to basic Bitcoin operations. Plus, your regular mining hardware might just gasp for breath with AI's intense requirements, presenting both operational and financial challenges.

Jobs and Environment: The Two-Edged Sword of AIEco-Benefits vs. Costly MakeoverAI has a surprisingly light carbon footprint, making up just 0.6% of global emissions in 2020. But if you're thinking of turning your mining rig into an eco-champion, brace for a hit to your wallet. The shift could cost you up to 20 times more per megawatt.

The Employment Conundrum: Boom or Bust?In places like Texas, Bitcoin mining has sparked about 2,000 rural jobs. But inject AI into this ecosystem and the job landscape becomes a murky terrain. Will AI add more jobs or snatch them away? The buzz suggests we'll need some heavy-duty upskilling and education to navigate this evolving landscape.

There you have it. AI's role in Bitcoin mining is a high-stakes gamble, impacting both job creation and environmental sustainability. It's an unfolding story with both perks and snags, so stay tuned for the next chapter.

Is AI the Green Lantern of Bitcoin Mining?AI's Impact: Beyond a Cool ConceptForget what you thought you knew'--AI in Bitcoin mining isn't just a buzzword. It's rolling up its sleeves and diving into the trenches. From companies like Applied Digital converting mining cooling systems to AI data centers to real-time, energy-saving insights, AI is rewriting the mining playbook.

Real Examples: AI Wearing a Green CapeReal talk'--AI's getting its hands dirty in green mining projects. Consider Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) offered by firms like BlockFills. Miners can now own a slice of sustainability. Bit Digital? They're funneling $35 million into AI for better yields. And Iris Energy? They're at the forefront of blending AI and high-performance computing for a cleaner mining future.

To sum it up, AI is becoming the Green Lantern of Bitcoin mining. It's not just padding stats; it's actively molding a more sustainable crypto landscape. From leveraging untapped energy to pioneering 'green' projects, AI is a linchpin in evolving how we view sustainability in crypto. So yes, AI is more than a flashy concept; it's an action hero in the world of green crypto mining.

What Lies Ahead? AI and Future Tech in Bitcoin MiningThe Quantum Leap: Ushering Speed and EfficiencyStepping into 2023, the "quantum era" is no longer sci-fi'--it's science fact, as per Australia's Chief Scientist Cathy Foley. Quantum computing aims to redefine artificial intelligence mining by attacking the chronic issue of electricity consumption.

Imagine this: instead of power-hungry ASICs, we could turn to Nvidia GPUs, which are tailor-made for both crypto mining and AI. Combine quantum computing and artificial intelligence, and we're staring at a mining future that's not just rapid but environmentally friendlier.

AI Plus Mining: A Marriage of Convenience and InnovationThe business headlines tell us that Bit Digital's partnership with an AI firm could skyrocket their revenue by $250 million in just three years. What does this mean for using an AI computer for Bitcoin mining? It's simple: AI's knack for energy efficiency and data optimization makes it the ideal partner in crime for crypto mining.

The ability of AI to handle live-streaming data can fine-tune the mining process, making blockchain businesses smarter and more efficient.

Rolling with the Changes: AI's Adaptive NatureMiners are no longer putting all their eggs in one basket; they're integrating AI as a hedge against the cutthroat unpredictability of the crypto world. Take Applied Digital, a Texas-based firm that repurposed its mining infrastructure for AI cloud computing.

Or consider how Iris Energy is reshaping its strategy to include AI solutions. What's more, Ethereum's switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake has led to a second life for Nvidia A40s'--they're now employed in AI tasks.

At the end of the day, the integration of AI and quantum computing in Bitcoin mining is more than just a trend'--it's a transformative shift. This blend of technologies is leading us toward a future of smarter, faster, and more sustainable mining. It's a glimpse of what's possible when innovation meets adaptation.

FAQs About Using an AI Computer for Bitcoin Mining1. Can we use AI to mine Bitcoin?Yes, you absolutely can use AI to mine Bitcoin. AI algorithms enhance the efficiency and adaptability of mining operations, making them more profitable and future-proof.

2. Can AI speed up Bitcoin mining?Indeed, AI does speed up Bitcoin mining. It uses advanced algorithms to optimize the mining process, significantly boosting efficiency and reducing energy consumption.

3. Can AI be used for cryptocurrency?Yes, AI is not limited to Bitcoin; it's applicable to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. It can improve DeFi mining and optimize trading strategies, among other applications.

4. Can you mine Bitcoin with just a computer?Mining Bitcoin with a laptop became impractical after 2014-2015. Nowadays, mining pools often exclude users relying on general-purpose hardware like laptops because they're too slow for efficient mining.

Conclusion: What's the Final Word on AI's Role in Bitcoin Mining?Ready to pivot your mining rig to the next big thing? Bottom line, using an AI computer for Bitcoin mining is a game-changer, not just buzz. With its algorithms that streamline efficiency, its ROI potential, and its adaptability to future tech, AI isn't a passing fad'--it's the future.

Disruptive? Absolutely. Profitable? Definitely. If you're not paying attention to AI in the Bitcoin mining landscape, it's time to start. The revolution is already here; don't get left behind.

This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:46

In briefThe largest Bitcoin miners are shifting to AI chipmaking, said a new report.The two main reasons are yield stability and lack of profits from mining.The AI industry is promising and poised for further growth. Changing market dynamics has caused three of the largest Bitcoin mining manufacturers, Bitmain, Ebang, and Canaan, to shift their long-term focus from mining rigs to AI chips, according to a report by analytics firm TokenInsight.

Chip research and development is the core competitiveness of mining machine manufacturers. The industry boasts billions of dollars in revenue each year, with Bitmain alone pocketing over $300 million in the first quarter of 2020, as per another report .

However, the profits are diminishing. TokenInsight said that after the Bitcoin halving, the mining costs of older mining machines have risen sharply and put millions of dollars of revenue at stake for the three firms.

In addition, newer rig makers such as WhatsMiner and the advent of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies'--which do not rely on mining pools'--are further challenging the profitability of the bigger firms.

''From a long-term perspective, blockchain mining has changed from its original high-yield state to deterministic and stable returns,'' said TokenInsight. This has, partly, caused mining makers to look at other sectors for revenues.

A mining farm owned by Bitmain in China. Image: TwitterAI to the miners' rescue That's where artificial intelligence (AI) steps in. Mining firms have both the technological prowess and the finances to pivot to AI chip making. AI chips are specialized processors that conduct millions of calculations per second to run mining software, similar to how mining chips operate. This opens up a new revenue stream for older firms like Bitmain and Ebang.

''The research team believes that AI chips have broad prospects and that they have a high degree of overlap with mining machine chips in terms of design and manufacturing,'' the report said.

It added, ''mining machine manufacturers' experience in mining machine chips can also be quickly transplanted to the field of AI chips. As a result, AI chips are bound to become a battleground for mining manufacturers.''

Bitmain already jumped on the AI bandwagon in 2018. The firm released Sophon, an AI chip that touted millions of calculations per second, to take on the likes of internationally-renowned chipmakers Nvidia and AMD.

Two years later, that bet seems to have been a good call by Jihan Wu, the founder of Bitmain, now that Ebang and Canaan are following suit.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:45

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Ryzhi)Many of the smart/IoT devices you'll purchase are powered by some form of Artificial Intelligence (AI)'--be it voice assistants, facial recognition cameras, or even your PC. These don't work via magic, however, and need something to power all of the data-processing they do. For some devices that could be done in the cloud, by vast datacentres. Other devices will do all their processing on the devices themselves, through an AI chip.

But what is an AI chip? And how does it differ from the various other chips you may find in a device? This article will highlight the importance of AI chips, the different kinds of AI chips that are used for different applications, and the benefits of using AI chips in devices.

We've built a list of the best business tablets right nowCheck out our list of the best business smartphones availableHere's our rundown of the best business laptops on the market AI processing units and what they are for Other chips and why they're not great for AIAbout the author

Albert Liu is the Founder and CEO of Kneron.

In the 1980s, we saw the rise of the personal computer. This proliferation was enabled by the CPU (central processing unit) which performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output operations specified by the instructions in a program. It is the brains of your computer. There are a number of giants in the CPU field, including Intel and AMD.

When speaking of evolution in CPUs, however, we must also mention ARM, whose chip architectures started in the 1980s in personal computers, but didn't become a dominant player until the rise of mobile computing, or the smartphone and to a lesser extent tablets. By 2005, 98% of all mobile phones sold were using at least some form of an ARM architecture. In 2013, 10 billion were produced and ARM-based chips are found in nearly 60 percent of the world's mobile devices. ARM is an important part of the AI chip space, which we'll talk about later.

Then, In the 1990s, real-time 3D graphics became increasingly common in arcade, computer and console games, which led to an increasing demand for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. Yet another hardware giant, NVIDIA, rose to meet this demand with the GPU (graphics processing unit), specialized in computer graphics and image processing. NVIDIA recently announced a deal to purchase ARM for $40 billion.

The AI processing unitWhile typically GPUs are better than CPUs when it comes to AI processing, they're not perfect. The industry needs specialised processors to enable efficient processing of AI applications, modelling and inference. As a result, chip designers are now working to create processing units optimized for executing these algorithms. These come under many names, such as NPU, TPU, DPU, SPU etc., but a catchall term can be the AI processing unit (AI PU).

The AI PU was created to execute machine learning algorithms, typically by operating on predictive models such as artificial neural networks. They are usually classified as either training or inference as these processes are generally performed independently.

Some applications we already see in the real world:

Monitoring a system or area from threats like a security system involving real time facial recognition (IP cams, door cameras, etc.)Chatbots for retail or businesses that interact with customersNatural language processing for voice assistantsAI processors vs GPUsBut wait a minute, some people may ask'--isn't the GPU already capable of executing AI models? Well yes, that's true. The GPU does in fact have some properties that are convenient for processing AI models.

GPUs process graphics, which are 2 dimensional or sometimes 3 dimensional, and thus requires parallel processing of multiple strings of functions at once. AI neural networks too require parallel processing, because they have nodes that branch out much like a neuron does in the brain of an animal. The GPU does this part just fine.

However, neural networks also require convolution, and this is where the GPU stumbles. In short, GPUs are fundamentally optimized for graphics, not neural networks'--they are at best a surrogate.

Another important factor that needs to be taken into account is the accelerated rate of AI development at the moment. Researchers and computer scientists around the world are constantly elevating the standards of AI and machine learning at an exponential rate that CPU and GPU advancement, as catch-all hardware, simply cannot keep up with.

Moore's Law states that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. But Moore's Law is dying, and even at its best could not keep up with the pace of AI development.

The acceleration of AI will ultimately rely on a specialized AI accelerator, such as the AI PU. AI PUs are generally required for the following purposes:

Accelerate the computation of Machine Learning tasks by several folds (nearly 10K times) as compared to GPUsConsume low power and improve resource utilization for Machine Learning tasks as compared to GPUs and CPUs The components of an AI SoC While the AI PU forms the brain of an AI System on a chip (SoC), it is just one part of a complex series of components that makes up the chip. Here, we'll break down the AI SoC, the components paired with the AI PU, and how they work together.

NPUAs outlined above, this is the neural processing unit or the matrix multiplication engine where the core operations of an AI SoC are carried out. We've already gone into plenty of detail there, but it's worth pointing out that for AI chipmakers, this is also the secret sauce of where any AI SoC stands out from all the other AI SoCs; like a watermark of the actual capabilities of your team.

ControllerThese are processors, usually based on RISC-V (open-source, designed by the University of California Berkeley), ARM (designed by ARM Holdings), or custom-logic instruction set architectures (ISA) which are used to control and communicate with all the other blocks and the external processor.

To control locally or not is a fundamental question that is answered by why this chip is being created, where it's being used, and who it's being used by; every chipmaker needs to answer these questions before deciding on this fundamental question.

SRAMThis is the local memory used to store the model or intermediate outputs. Think of it like your home fridge. Though its storage is small, it's extremely fast and convenient to grab stuff (in this case data) or put them back. In certain use cases, especially related to edge AI, that speed is vital, like a car that needs to put on its brakes when a pedestrian suddenly appears on the road.

How much SRAM you include in a chip is a decision based on cost vs performance. A bigger SRAM pool requires a higher upfront cost, but less trips to the DRAM (which is the typical, slower, cheaper memory you might find on a motherboard or as a stick slotted into the motherboard of a desktop PC) so it pays for itself in the long run.

On the other hand, a smaller SRAM pool has lower upfront costs, but requires more trips to the DRAM; this is less efficient, but if the market dictates a more affordable chip is required for a particular use case, it may be required to cut costs here.

Speed of processing is the difference between bigger SRAM pools and smaller pools, just like RAM affects your computer's performance and ability to handle performance needs.

I/OThese blocks are needed to connect the SoC to components outside of the SoC, for example the DRAM and potentially an external processor. These interfaces are vital for the AI SoC to maximize its potential performance and application, otherwise you'll create bottlenecks. For example, if a V8 engine was connected to a 4 gallon gas tank, it would have to go pump gas every few blocks. Thus the interface and what it connects to (DRAM, external processor, etc) needs to bring out the potential performance of the AI SoC

DDR, for example, is an interface for DRAM. So if the SRAM is like your fridge at home, think of DRAM like the grocery store. It's got way bigger storage, but it takes much more time to go retrieve items and come back home.

Interconnect fabricThe interconnect fabric is the connection between the processors (AI PU, controllers) and all the other modules on the SoC. Like the I/O, the Interconnect Fabric is essential in extracting all of the performance of an AI SoC. We only generally become aware of the Interconnect Fabric in a chip if it's not up to scratch.

No matter how fast or groundbreaking your processors are, the innovations only matter if your interconnect fabric can keep up and not create latency that bottlenecks the overall performance, just like not enough lanes on the highway can cause traffic during rush hour.

All of these components are crucial parts of an AI chip. While different chips may have extra components or put differing priorities on investment into these components, as outlined with SRAM above, these essential components work together in a symbiotic manner to ensure your AI chip can process AI models quickly and efficiently. Unlike CPUs and GPUs, the design of AI SoC is far from mature. This section of the industry is continually developing at rapid speed, we continue to see advancements in in the design of AI SoC.

AI chips and their use cases There are many different chips with different names on the market, all with different naming schemes depending on which company designs them. These chips have different use cases, both in terms of the models they're used for, and the real-world applications they're designed to accelerate.

Training and inferenceArtificial intelligence is essentially the simulation of the human brain using artificial neural networks, which are meant to act as substitutes for the biological neural networks in our brains. A neural network is made up of a bunch of nodes which work together, and can be called upon to execute a model.

This is where AI chips come into play. They are particularly good at dealing with these artificial neural networks, and are designed to do two things with them: training and inference.

Chips designed for training essentially act as teachers for the network, like a kid in school. A raw neural network is initially under-developed and taught, or trained, by inputting masses of data. Training is very compute-intensive, so we need AI chips focused on training that are designed to be able to process this data quickly and efficiently. The more powerful the chip, the faster the network learns.

Once a network has been trained, it needs chips designed for inference in order to use the data in the real world, for things like facial recognition, gesture recognition, natural language processing, image searching, spam filtering etc. think of inference as the aspect of AI systems that you're most likely to see in action, unless you work in AI development on the training side.

You can think of training as building a dictionary, while inference is akin to looking up words and understanding how to use them. Both are necessary and symbiotic.

It's worth noting that chips designed for training can also inference, but inference chips cannot do training.

Cloud and edgeThe other aspect of an AI chip we need to be aware of is whether it is designed for cloud use cases or edge use cases, and whether we need an inference chip or training chip for those use cases.

Cloud computing is useful because of its accessibility, as its power can be utilised completely off-prem. You don't need a chip on the device to handle any of the inference in those use cases, which can save on power and cost. It has downsides however when it comes to privacy and security, as the data is stored on cloud servers which can be hacked or mishandled. For inference use cases, it can also be less efficient as it's less specialised than edge chips.

Chips that handle their inference on the edge are found on a device, for example a facial recognition camera. They're more private and secure than using the cloud, as all data is stored on-device, and chips are generally designed for their specific purpose - for example, a facial recognition camera would use a chip that is particularly good at running models designed for facial recognition. They also have their cons, as adding another chip to a device increases cost and power consumption. It's important to use an edge AI chip that balances cost and power to ensure the device is not too expensive for its market segment, or that it's not too power-hungry, or simply not powerful enough to efficiently serve its purpose.

Here's how these applications and chips are generally paired:

Cloud + TrainingThe purpose of this pairing is to develop AI models used for inference. These models are eventually refined into AI applications that are specific towards a use case. These chips are powerful and expensive to run, and are designed to train as quickly as possible.

Example systems include NVIDIA's DGX-2 system, which totals 2 petaFLOPS of processing power. It is made up of 16 NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPUs. Another example is Intel Habana's Gaudi chip.

Examples of applications that people interact with every day that require a lot of training include Facebook photos or Google translate.

As the complexity of these models increases every few months, the market for cloud and training will continue to be needed and relevant.

Cloud + InferenceThe purpose of this pairing is for times when inference needs significant processing power, to the point where it would not be possible to do this inference on-device. This is because the application utilizes bigger models and processes a significant amount of data.

Sample chips here include Qualcomm's Cloud AI 100, which are large chips used for AI in massive cloud datacentres. Another example is Alibaba's Huanguang 800, or Graphcore's Colossus MK2 GC200 IPU.

Where training chips were used to train Facebook's photos or Google Translate, cloud inference chips are used to process the data you input using the models these companies created. Other examples include AI chatbots or most AI-powered services run by large technology companies.

Edge + InferenceUsing on-device edge chips for inference removes any issues with network instability or latency, and is better for preserving privacy of data used, as well as security. There are no associated costs for using the bandwidth required to upload a lot of data, particularly visual data like images or video, so as long as cost and power-efficiency are balanced it can be cheaper and more efficient than cloud inference.

Examples here include Kneron's own chips, including the KL520 and recently launched KL720 chip, which are lower-power, cost-efficient chips designed for on-device use. Other examples include Intel Movidius and Google's Coral TPU.

Use cases include facial recognition surveillance cameras, cameras used in vehicles for pedestrian and hazard detection or drive awareness detection, and natural language processing for voice assistants.

All of these different types of chips and their different implementations, models, and use cases are essential for the development of the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) future. When supported by other nascent technologies like 5G, the possibilities only grow. AI is fast becoming a big part of our lives, both at home and at work, and development in the AI chip space will be rapid in order to accommodate our increasing reliance on the technology.

Here's our list of the best business computers right nowSign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Albert Liu is the founder of Kneron. He founded the company with a mission to bring on-device Edge AI and machine learning to mass-market devices and usher in the age of AI everywhere. Their vision at Kneron is to realize the Edge AI Net and democratize AI from the centralized cloud ''brain'' and distribute AI inferencing onto devices everywhere.Albert was formerly in R&D and management positions at Qualcomm where he led a team that developed nine patents and won the Qualcomm ImpaQt Research & Development award. He also worked in the Samsung Electronics R&D center and for MStar and Wireless Information as a researcher.Albert is an experienced Chairman Of The Board and CEO with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry. He is skilled in Hardware Architecture, Management, Sales, Strategic Planning, and Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC).

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:43

Cory Doctorow (by Amelia Beamer)Of course AI is a bubble. It has all the hallmarks of a classic tech bubble. Pick up a rental car at SFO and drive in either direction on the 101 '' north to San Francisco, south to Palo Alto '' and every single billboard is advertising some kind of AI company. Every business plan has the word ''AI'' in it, even if the business itself has no AI in it. Even as two major, terrifying wars rage around the world, every newspaper has an above-the-fold AI headline and half the stories on Google News as I write this are about AI. I've had to make rule for my events: The first person to mention AI owes everyone else a drink.

It's a bubble.

Tech bubbles come in two varieties: The ones that leave something behind, and the ones that leave nothing behind. Sometimes, it can be hard to guess what kind of bubble you're living through until it pops and you find out the hard way.

When the dotcom bubble burst, it left a lot behind. Walking through San Francisco's Mission District one day in 2001, I happened upon a startup founder who was standing on the sidewalk, selling off a fleet of factory-wrapped Steelcase Leap chairs ($50 each!) and a dozen racks of servers with as much of his customers' data as I wanted ($250 per server or $1000 for a rack). Companies that were locked into sky-high commercial leases scram­bled to sublet their spaces at bargain-basement prices. Craigslist was glutted with foosball tables and Razor scooters, and failed dotcom T-shirts were up for the taking, by the crateful.

But the most important residue after the bubble popped was the mil­lions of young people who'd been lured into dropping out of university in order to take dotcom jobs where they got all-expenses paid crash courses in HTML, Perl, and Python. This army of technologists was unique in that they were drawn from all sorts of backgrounds '' art-school dropouts, hu­manities dropouts, dropouts from earth science and bioscience programs and other disciplines that had historically been consumers of technology, not producers of it.

This created a weird and often wonderful dynamic in the Bay Area, a brief respite between the go-go days of Bubble 1.0 and Bubble 2.0, a time when the cost of living plummeted in the Bay Area, as did the cost of office space, as did the cost of servers. People started making technology because it served a need, or because it delighted them, or both. Technologists briefly operated without the goad of VCs' growth-at-all-costs spurs.

The bubble was terrible. VCs and scammers scooped up billions from pension funds and other institutional investors and wasted it on obviously doomed startups. But after all that ''irrational exuberance'' burned away, the ashes proved a fertile ground for new growth.

Contrast that bubble with, say, cryptocurrency/NFTs, or the complex financial derivatives that led up to the 2008 financial crisis. These crises left behind very little reusable residue. The expensively retrained physicists whom the finance sector taught to generate wildly defective risk-hedging algorithms were not able to apply that knowledge to create successor algo­rithms that were useful. The fraud of the cryptocurrency bubble was far more pervasive than the fraud in the dotcom bubble, so much so that without the fraud, there's almost nothing left. A few programmers were trained in Rust, a very secure programming language that is broadly applicable elsewhere. But otherwise, the residue from crypto is a lot of bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

AI is a bubble, and it's full of fraud, but that doesn't automatically mean there'll be nothing of value left behind when the bubble bursts. World­Com was a gigantic fraud and it kicked off a fiber-optic bubble, but when WorldCom cratered, it left behind a lot of fiber that's either in use today or waiting to be lit up. On balance, the world would have been better off without the WorldCom fraud, but at least something could be salvaged from the wreckage.

That's unlike, say, the Enron scam or the Uber scam, both of which left the world worse off than they found it in every way. Uber burned $31 billion in investor cash, mostly from the Saudi royal family, to create the illusion of a viable business. Not only did that fraud end up screwing over the retail investors who made the Saudis and the other early investors a pile of money after the company's IPO '' but it also destroyed the legitimate taxi business and convinced cities all over the world to starve their transit systems of investment because Uber seemed so much cheaper. Uber continues to hemorrhage money, resorting to cheap accounting tricks to make it seem like they're finally turning it around, even as they double the price of rides and halve driver pay (and still lose money on every ride). The market can remain irrational longer than any of us can stay solvent, but when Uber runs out of suckers, it will go the way of other pump-and-dumps like WeWork.

What kind of bubble is AI?

Like Uber, the massive investor subsidies for AI have produced a sugar high of temporarily satisfied users. Fooling around feeding prompts to an image genera­tor or a large language model can be fun, and playful communities have sprung up around these subsidized, free-to-use tools (less savory communities have also come together to produce nonconsensual pornography, fraud materials, and hoaxes).

The largest of these models are incredibly expensive. They're expensive to make, with billions spent acquir­ing training data, labelling it, and running it through massive computing arrays to turn it into models.

Even more important, these models are expensive to run. Even if a bankrupt AI company's model and servers could be acquired for pennies on the dollar, even if the new owners could be shorn of any overhanging legal liability from looming copyright cases, even if the eye-watering salaries commanded by AI engineers collapsed, the electricity bill for each query '' to power the servers and their chillers '' would still make running these giant models very expensive.

Do the potential paying customers for these large models add up to enough money to keep the servers on? That's the 13 trillion dollar question, and the answer is the difference between WorldCom and Enron, or dotcoms and cryptocurrency.

Though I don't have a certain answer to this question, I am skeptical. AI decision support is potentially valuable to practitioners. Accountants might value an AI tool's ability to draft a tax return. Radiologists might value the AI's guess about whether an X-ray suggests a cancerous mass. But with AIs' tendency to ''hallucinate'' and confabulate, there's an increasing recognition that these AI judgments require a ''human in the loop'' to carefully review their judgments.

In other words, an AI-supported radiologist should spend exactly the same amount of time considering your X-ray, and then see if the AI agrees with their judgment, and, if not, they should take a closer look. AI should make radiology more expensive, in order to make it more accurate.

But that's not the AI business model. AI pitchmen are explicit on this score: The purpose of AI, the source of its value, is its capacity to increase productivity, which is to say, it should allow workers to do more, which will allow their bosses to fire some of them, or get each one to do more work in the same time, or both. The entire investor case for AI is ''companies will buy our products so they can do more with less.'' It's not ''business custom­ers will buy our products so their products will cost more to make, but will be of higher quality.''

AI companies are implicitly betting that their customers will buy AI for highly consequential automation, fire workers, and cause physical, mental and economic harm to their own customers as a result, somehow escaping liability for these harms. Early indicators are that this bet won't pay off. Cruise, the ''self-driving car'' startup that was just forced to pull its cars off the streets of San Francisco, pays 1.5 staffers to supervise every car on the road. In other words, their AI replaces a single low-waged driver with 1.5 more expensive remote supervisors '' and their cars still kill people.

If Cruise is a bellwether for the future of the AI regulatory environment, then the pool of AI applications shrinks to a puddle. There just aren't that many customers for a product that makes their own high-stakes projects bet­ter, but more expensive. There are many low-stakes applications '' say, selling kids access to a cheap subscription that generates pictures of their RPG characters in action '' but they don't pay much. The universe of low-stakes, high-dollar applications for AI is so small that I can't think of anything that belongs in it.

Add up all the money that users with low-stakes/fault-tolerant applications are willing to pay; combine it with all the money that risk-tolerant, high-stakes users are willing to spend; add in all the money that high-stakes users who are willing to make their products more expen­sive in order to keep them running are willing to spend. If that all sums up to less than it takes to keep the servers running, to acquire, clean and label new data, and to process it into new models, then that's it for the commercial Big AI sector.

Just take one step back and look at the hype through this lens. All the big, exciting uses for AI are either low-dollar (helping kids cheat on their homework, generating stock art for bottom-feeding publications) or high-stakes and fault-intolerant (self-driving cars, radiology, hiring, etc.).

Every bubble pops eventually. When this one goes, what will be left behind?

Well, there will be little models '' Hugging Face, Llama, etc '' that run on commodity hardware. The people who are learning to ''prompt engineer'' these ''toy models'' have gotten far more out of them than even their makers imagined possible. They will continue to eke out new marginal gains from these little models, possibly enough to satisfy most of those low-stakes, low-dollar ap­plications. But these little models were spun out of big models, and without stupid bubble money and/or a viable business case, those big models won't survive the bubble and be available to make more capable little models.

There are some promising avenues, like ''feder­ated learning,'' that hypothetically combine a lot of commodity consumer hardware to replicate some of the features of those big, capital-intensive models from the bubble's beneficiaries. It may be that '' as with the interregnum after the dotcom bust '' AI practitioners will use their all-expenses-paid education in PyTorch and TensorFlow (AI's answer to Perl and Python) to push the limits on federated learning and small-scale AI models to new places, driven by playfulness, scientific curiosity, and a desire to solve real problems.

There will also be a lot more people who un­derstand statistical analysis at scale and how to wrangle large amounts of data. There will be a lot of people who know PyTorch and TensorFlow, too '' both of these are ''open source'' projects, but are effectively controlled by Meta and Google, respectively. Perhaps they'll be wrestled away from their corporate owners, forked and made more broadly applicable, after those corporate behemoths move on from their money-losing Big AI bets.

Our policymakers are putting a lot of energy into thinking about what they'll do if the AI bubble doesn't pop '' wrangling about ''AI ethics'' and ''AI safety.'' But '' as with all the previous tech bubbles '' very few people are talking about what we'll be able to salvage when the bubble is over.

Cory Doctorow is the author of Walkaway, Little Brother, and Information Doesn't Want to Be Free (among many others); he is the co-owner of Boing Boing, a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a visiting professor of Computer Science at the Open University and an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate.

All opinions expressed by commentators are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Locus.This article and more like it in the December and January 2023 issue of Locus.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.

(C)Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:38

A record number of subprime borrowers are behind on their auto loan payments by 60 days or more, according to figures from Fitch Ratings reported by Bloomberg.

The rate hit 6.11% in September '' the highest since records began in 1994, and was up from the 5.93% recorded at the start of the year.

Analysts predict that auto loan delinquencies will continue to rise into 2024 and peak at about 10% before they start to fall, per CNN.

The high rates of delinquencies indicate that many lower-earning workers in particularly are struggling amid ongoing high inflation, a rough jobs market, and the resumption of federal student loan payments following a pandemic-era freeze.

High interest rates are also having an impact, with many turning to borrowing to cope. In the second quarter of this financial year, credit card debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in the NY Fed survey's history.

Though delinquency rates do not necessarily mean a recession will happen, they are often reflect a struggling economy.

Margaret Rowe, senior director at Fitch, told Bloomberg: " The subprime borrower is getting squeezed. They can often be a first line of where we start to see the negative effects of macroeconomic headwinds."

More than a third of Americans are considered subprime borrowers, according to an Experian study, meaning they have lower credit scores and are deemed less likely to meet their repayments on loans. As a result they usually have to pay considerably higher interest rates.

For subprime borrowers, rates for new cars average 11.5% and 18.5% for used autos, according to Experian. Prime borrowers are charged far less '' 6.4% and 8.75% respectively on average.

Those that can't meet their payments face having their cars repossessed and often have great difficulty getting to work. In 2022, only 11% of commuters in the US used public transport, according to the World Economic Forum.

Cox Automotive, a leading auto organization, predicts that 1.5 million cars will be repossessed this year '' 300,000 more than in 2022.

The rising number of delinquencies on auto loans is not putting off some consumers, however. A record number of new car buyers took out loans with monthly payments of $1,000 or more in the three months to June, according to data from Edmunds .

Car payments have become the highest expense for some Gen Zers and millennials, even exceeding their rent.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:24

2024 will be an enormous year for elections and political news worldwide. Policymaking will play a part, but there is a risk it could be overshadowed by personalities and party dramas. This would be a shame, as there are good reasons to believe that the major challenges the world is facing can be addressed if the thinking and will to act are there. Here are ten policy areas I would love to see prioritised in 2024.

1. Countries Finally Address Investment in Health In the wake of Covid-19, there is growing awareness that it is vital for countries to prepare for future pandemics. This not only requires better coordination between nations but also the right preventative measures, in particular a more robust adult-vaccination infrastructure. As memories of the global pandemic ebb it is tempting to move on, but a return to the status quo ante would be a terrible mistake. Addressing public health is one of the most impactful things policymakers can do for people. The economic benefit is also becoming increasingly clear, meaning the business case should soon be seen as overwhelming.

2. Net-Zero Targets Get Real There are already signs of a net-zero backlash. Voters who feel the pinch as climate targets become real will find more outlets next year to protest against what they see as arbitrary timelines and unfair distribution of costs. Policymakers with few easy options will be tempted to redefine targets, let them slip or abandon them altogether. But postponing action won't solve the problem; instead, the path to full net-zero implementation should be defined. Realism on genuinely achievable plans will be increasingly important; countries that can take the big decisions necessary to actually get there will be much better positioned than those with only a deadline, however eye-catching.

3. International Finance Finds Climate Projects At the same time as setting out national plans, policymakers can support international efforts to channel willing finance to ready projects. Capital is available and many potential projects exist, but lack of confidence, incomplete information or the absence of necessary policy backing hamper efforts to connect them. Better information and support can help more projects in emerging markets come on stream and make a significant contribution to the global effort to reach net zero. This process should also be self-perpetuating: as investors find new partners, they will gain the connections and experience to enable more projects.

4. All Levers Are Used to Achieve Food Security As climate change and geopolitical shifts affect supply chains, many countries are rightly thinking about protecting food security, one of the fundamental tasks of government. The good news is that, despite mounting challenges, more tools than ever are available, from CRISPR technology, which can programme the biology of crops and make them more resilient, to tech-intensive vertical farms, which bring production to urban or challenging environments. Together with satellite monitoring and new weather-forecasting methods, the potential exists to significantly improve agricultural yields, provided policymakers foster the conditions in which farmers can implement them.

5. Policymakers Maintain Momentum on AI, Even If Public Interest Dips While there is currently plenty of hype around artificial intelligence (AI), next year it is reasonable to expect that some predictions will not come true and some of the rhetoric may look overblown. Over the longer term, however, we are likely to understand that this apparent lull was simply our experience of the early stages of the technology's exponential upward curve. Big changes are coming, even if they are not evident right now. So policymakers should keep working on the deployment and regulation of AI, and in particular act fast to ensure access to the compute capacity their country needs to compete.

6. Public Services Start to Serve the People Countries are experimenting in different ways with applying technology to public services to make them more user-friendly, responsive and efficient. But genuinely transformative progress relies on connecting the many silos of information to deliver proactive support to the people who need it, reducing waste while maximising service value. This requires a common infrastructure and identity system, and considerable design work. Many policymakers already recognise that the technology to enable transformation exists; now what is needed is the policy commitment.

7. Strengthening the Digital Backbone Becomes a Priority Digital infrastructure, the network over which government services, business and social connectivity can flourish, is a key factor in each country's ability to compete. Ensuring investment is delivered to support fixed, mobile and broadcast capacities is a never-ending task, but the fact that satellite broadband is finally fulfilling its promise in remote or complex environments is promising. Policymakers have a range of tools to support the rollout of modern infrastructure. One way or another, citizens are depending on them to fill in the remaining blank spots on the map.

8. Newer Forms of Work Get the Status They Deserve Tech platforms have opened up new forms of work that are providing new services. While delivery drivers and ride-share services might be the most visible examples of the ''gig economy'', new models offering short-term commitment and easy access to specialist skills exist across many sectors. It is tempting to think about these jobs in terms of existing categories '' ''employee'' or ''self-employed'' '' and apply protections and conditions accordingly. But our research suggests that workers very often value elements of the job that would be taken away if they were shoe-horned into traditional categories. A smarter approach to gig work would be to support transparency, accountability and consistent enforcement of standards while protecting flexibility.

9. Supply Chains Get Smart, but Stay International Countries' future success will rest in large part on their positioning in the new tech economy. This will mean developing domestic talent, infrastructure and research, but also taking a strategic approach to supply chains, including the vital issue of compute capacity. While building domestic capacity is crucial, onshoring everything just isn't a feasible strategy. Instead, policymakers should be thinking hard about alliances and reliability in the face of geopolitical change.

10. Policymakers Reimagine the Kind of State They Want Government almost everywhere is growing, usually in pursuit of solving the very real issues that policymakers face globally. In some cases, this is delivering value to citizens and incremental gains for countries. But the mid-21st-century state could look very different to that of the 20th century. Policymakers with genuine ambitions to achieve transformative change have the chance to start building a reimagined state '' one that is based on a concept of smarter, more effective interventions, tech-driven decision-making and significantly reduced waste. Countries that can deliver a reimagined state will lead the way in governance and demonstrate a way forward that reduces the appeal of easier populist answers.

TBI's work, past and future, is aimed at providing radical-but-practical answers to the biggest questions. We'll continue to deliver our insight and analysis, but would love to hear from you if you would like to work with us.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:15

An anti-conspiracy theories 'think tank' was the London-based 'think and do tank' (started in 2006) called the INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC DIALOGUE (ISD), which pioneered research into violent extremism and inter-communal conflict. ISD was at the forefront of forging real-world, evidence-based responses to the challenges of integration, extremism and terrorism.

The ISD had partnerships with major public and private sector organisations, e.g. GOOGLE; TWITTER; MICROSOFT; national governments; the UN Development Program; CHATHAM HOUSE (RIIA); George Soros' OSF; BROOKINGS INSTITUTE; LSE; BRITISH COUNCIL; CARNEGIE CORPORATION.

ISD's founder and president was a prominent Jewish Zionist: GEORGE WEIDENFELD (Baron Weidenfeld), who had served in the inaugural Israeli government and married into the MARKS AND SPENCER retail clan when he married a daughter of another prominent Jewish Zionist: ISRAEL SIEFF. Weidenfeld worked for the BBC during WWII, where he was tasked with making contact with governments in exile, befriending not just the French leader General de Gaulle but other world leaders and future authors, such as President Tito of Yugoslavia.

An ISD researcher, JULIA EBNER, wrote an anti-Conspiracy theory article in ''The Guardian'' newspaper in 2019: ''Stop the online conspiracy theorists before they break democracy''. She wrote that an ISD report showed that European 'Far Right' conspiracy theorists ran sophisticated campaigns throughout European politics. That ISD report (''The Battle for Bavaria'') was supported by George Soros' OSF.

The ISD chairman in 2019 was another Jewish Zionist: MICHAEL LEWIS, whose family supported pro-Israel organisations, e.g. the UNITED JEWISH ISRAEL APPEAL (Michael Lewis a director); BICOM (Michael Lewis was a director and sponsor). Lewis' father STANLEY LEWIS controlled the Israeli travel company PALTOURS, which was originally a subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust (the latter originally the first ever Zionist Bank). Michael Lewis co-chaired the WEIDENFELD SCHOLARSHIPS & LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME.

One of the ISD's programmes was the STRONG CITIES NETWORK, launched at the United Nations in 2015. The Strong Cities Network (SCN) was the first ever global network of mayors, municipal-level policy makers and practitioners united in building social cohesion and community resilience to counter violent extremism in all its forms.

GOOGLE Innovation Fund '' In 2017 Google.org and ISD partnered to deliver a £1m innovation fund to counter hate and extremism in the UK. The fund aimed to support innovative projects on and offline that seek to disrupt, undermine, counter or provide positive alternatives to hate and extremism.

The ISD Board in 2019 included BARON CHARLES GUTHRIE, a former top British military officer; OBE; GCB; GCVO; Knight of Malta; director at NM Rothschild & Sons; ex-SAS commander; shareholder at the CIA-backed Silicon Valley company PALANTIR TECHNOLOGIES (co-founders included the PAYPAL co-founder PETER THIEL).

The ISD International Advisory Board in 2019 included:-

1) RICHARD BARRETT (CMG, OBE) '' a former MI5 and MI6 officer; British diplomat involved in countering violent extremism. Barrett has been a recognised global expert on terrorism who frequently appeared as a panellist in related conferences and whose commentary was regularly featured in the press.

Barrett was a founding member of the UN Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), which was established in 2005 to promote the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy adopted by the General Assembly in 2006. He chaired the CTITF Working Group on Terrorist use of the Internet and the CTITF Working Group on Dialogue Understanding and Countering the Appeal of Terrorism.

Barrett was designated as one of the Global Experts of the UN ALLIANCE OF CIVILISATIONS, an initiative that seeks to galvanize international action against extremism through the forging of international, intercultural and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. The Alliance places a particular emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.

Barrett served as Director of Global Counter Terrorism Operations for the British MI6 (SIS) both before and after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States.

2) BARON ADAIR TURNER '' ex-Chairman of the British quasi-governmental FSA (Financial Services Authority). He is a former chairman of the UK Committee on Climate Change, as well as a former Director-General of the CBI (Confederation of British Industry). Turner joined George Soros' economic think tank INET (Institute for New Economic Thinking) as a senior research fellow. From that, he wrote a book ''Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance''.

INET got donations from other philanthropists and financiers, including Paul Volcker; David Rockefeller; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Turner wrote opinion columns for the Soros backed international media organisation PROJECT SYNDICATE, which received grants from Soros' Open Society Foundation and from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Turner was the ISD's chair of its' policy board.

3) JONATHAN POWELL '' the former senior adviser to British PM TONY BLAIR, taking the role ofThe Downing Street Chief of Staff, who was the most senior political appointee in the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, acting as a senior aide to the Prime Minister; a powerful, non-ministerial position within Her Majesty's Government.

4) TIMOTHY GARTON ASH '' a Historian and article writer for centre left publications (''Prospect''; ''The Guardian''). Member of the European CFR, a pro-Europe think tank funded by Soros' OSF.

The aforementioned ISD Senior Research Fellow, JULIA EBNER, continued her negative stance towards conspiracy theories in her 2020 book ''Going Dark'', an exploration of 'extremists' (Far Right and Islamist). For her research she went undercover, employing 5 different identities. Is she a professional spy? Is the ISD just a front for British Intelligence? Ebner denied such an allegation in an interview with ''Time'' magazine: ''I'm not a professional MI5 agent, I did acting in high school but going undercover didn't come naturally to me.'' (interview by Madeline Roach, February 18, 2020). In an interview with ''The Guardian'' she recounted a time when her cover came close to being exposed at a meeting with MARTIN SELLNER, the head of an Austrian Far Right group. Apparently, Sellner didn't recognise her despite both of them appearing in a BBC ''Newsnight'' report. (''Guardian'' interview by FIONA STURGES, Feb 14 2020). Perhaps Sellner was an undercover agent himself.

In her book, Ebner suggested various techniques for defeating the extremists, including ''Trolling the trolls'', though she acknowledged that it isn't an ideal tactic. She also advocated '' in the above ''Time'' interview'' '' the regulation of the tech companies: ''Firstly, we need a global legal framework that forces all the tech companies '-- not just the big ones but also the fringe networks, like 8chan and 4chan '-- to remove content that could inspire terrorism.''

Ebner was interviewed by the BBC news presenter EMILY MAITLIS on the BBC's flagship political/current affairs programme ''Newsnight''.

After leaving the LSE (where she studied), Ebner joined the London-based counterextremist think tank, QUILLIAM, whose co-founders included a former senior advisor to Tony Blair's Institute for Global Change '' ED HUSAIN, who was a former CFR senior fellow.

Another ISD employee, CHLOE COLLIVER, was interviewed for a primetime BBC documentary in 2021 on alleged vaccine disinformation during the Covid pandemic: ''Vaccines: The Disinformation War '' Panorama'' (BBC1, Feb 15 th , 2021). Colliver said that social media sites had been too slow to deal with harmful misinformation about vaccines. Colliver, according to the ISD website, was '''... Head of Digital Policy and Strategy at ISD, leading a global team of analysts studying disinformation and extremism online'... Chloe has worked on the development of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Google, and has provided expert testimony to the UK Home Affairs Select Committee, the Swedish, New Zealand, Canadian, French and German governments, the International Grand Committee on Disinformation and the Global Counter Terrorism Forum on digital policy and tech regulation. Her work has appeared in CNN, the BBC, Sky News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired and Bloomberg. Chloe is a Yale Mellon Fellow and sits on the Advisory Board for Accountable Tech.''

The aforementioned GIFCT ( Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism) was f ounded by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube in 2017, with the mission '''...to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms'... the Forum was designed to foster technical collaboration among member companies, advance relevant research, and share knowledge with smaller platforms.'' (see their website).

Colliver and the ISD teamed up with the BBC during the pandemic in 2020 for a study, as reported online by the BBC's flagship technology TV show ''Click'':

''Now, a co-investigation by BBC Click and the UK counter-extremism think-tank Institute of Strategic Dialogue, indicates how both extremist political and fringe medical communities have tried to exploit the pandemic online. [Sub headline] Blaming immigration. Chloe Colliver led the study: ''We started doing this research because we were interested to look at the intersection of extremism and disinformation online,'' she explained. ''We wanted to know how the coronavirus crisis was affecting those trends.'''' (See ''Coronavirus: Far-right spreads Covid-19 'infodemic' on Facebook'', By Carl Miller, BBC Click, Published 4 May 2020 on the BBC NEWS website).

ISD employees in 2021 included:-

1) SASHA HAVLICEK '' the ISD's Founding CEO. According to the ISD website, Havlicek '''...has spearheaded partnerships with the UN, EU Commission and Global Counter-Terrorism Forum'... Sasha serves as an expert advisor to the UK Counter-Extremism Commission and the Mayor of London's counter-extremism programme, and is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations'...and is a regular commentator in the media (CNN, BBC, Channel 4 News and other networks)'... She has spearheaded the largest global network of former extremists (AVE) in partnership with Google's Jigsaw; the Strong Cities Network, the first global counter-extremism cities network; and the Innovation Hub, a partnership with Facebook, Google and Twitter to counter extremists' online efforts. Most recently she launched The Online Civil Courage Initiative designed to amplify efforts to counter hate speech online, with Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg.''

2) MILO COMERFORD '' the IDS's Head of Policy & Research for Counter-Extremism. ''Milo features regularly in international media, including CNN, BBC News, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Times, Sky News and Al Jazeera. Milo was previously Senior Analyst at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where he led major research projects on Salafi-jihadi propaganda, international educational responses to extremism, and the transnational far right.''

Partners of the aforementioned Tony Blair Institute for Global Change included:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

Microsoft Philanthropies APAC (Asia-Pacific Countries)

Microsoft Philanthropies MEA (Middle East & Africa)

Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

The Rockefeller Foundation

3) JONATHAN BIRDWELL '' ISD Senior Policy Fellow. '' Until 2020, he was ISD's Deputy Director with responsibility for Research, Policy and Cities work, overseeing ISD's policy work and networks including the Policy Planners' Network and the Strong Cities Network, as well as overseeing ISD's work on education policy and programming'... Prior to joining ISD, Jonathan was Head of Programme at the UK cross-party think tank Demos, where he published over forty research reports on topics including violent extremism both Islamist (The Edge of Violence, 2010) and Far-Right (The New Face of Digital Populism, 2011).''

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 15:26

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This information is not legal advice. While we do our best to provide useful information to use as a starting point, Yotpo SMS & Email advises all merchants to obtain professional legal advice to ensure that all marketing campaigns are sent in full compliance with all applicable laws.

Just like any other marketing channel, SMS follows strict regulations, industry standards, and guidelines. Before using it to market products, promote sales, or simply communicate with shoppers, you must be familiar with the guidelines on prohibited or limited content. At Yotpo SMS & Email, we look after our users and want to make sure you send only the highest quality messages to your subscribers, compliant with all regulations, and respectful of customers.

The following article will go through those prohibited or limited-content categories and explain how Yotpo SMS & Email enforces restrictions.

These guidelines are aimed at merchants who wish to use SMS marketing in the US & Canada.

Prohibited or limited message categoriesFederally illegal substancesThis category includes all federally illegal substances such as:

Marijuana/cannabis (including CBD)VapingPrescription medicationKratom (labeled as a controlled substance by the DEA) All are strictly prohibited for SMS marketing - Yotpo SMS & Email does not onboard brands selling these, no exceptions.

Merchants who promote federally illegal substances will be blocked, will not be able to send messages in the US & Canada, and will see the following banner on their SMS & Email dashboard.

The View Settings button will take you to your Country Limitations, where you can see which countries are blocked from receiving SMS/MMS messages from your store.

If your account has been blocked , please contact the support team.

S.H.A.F.T.S.H.A.F.T. is an acronym that stands for Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco. It outlines the categories of text messages specifically regulated due to moral and legal issues and is monitored and enforced by the CTIA and the mobile carriers.

Sex (adult content), Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco are federally legal and can be marketed through SMS as long as a functioning age-gate is in place. The age-gate needs to prompt the user to enter their birthdate, rather than just click ''Yes'' to approve that they're over 21.

S.H.A.F.T can only be sentvia designated short codes and not via toll-free Numbers. To apply for a designated short code, contact us.

Although not technically a law, the S.H.A.F.T. guidelines should be taken seriously by anyone using SMS to communicate with consumers to comply with the CTIA best practices and carriers' requirements.

Other Prohibited ContentOther than the S.H.A.F.T. content restrictions, the CTIA also calls out several different message categories that must be excluded from all SMS communications:

Depictions and endorsement of violenceProfanityHate/discriminatory speechRefer to the CTIA's Handbook, section A.5, for additional information.

Carrier SPAM MitigationMobile carriers are not only responsible for the distribution of text message content but act as gatekeepers between a brand and its customers. Each mobile carrier has the right to issue its own guidelines when it comes to text message content. For example, such content may include high-risk financial services, gambling, multi-level marketing, etc.

We strongly advise you to familiarize yourself with local mobile carriers' guidelines, the existing laws, and the industry's best practices. In addition, go through our Terms of Service , section 4, to review our limitations of use.Occasionally exceptions are made for specific use cases, but only after scrutiny by the service provider and mobile carrier. Reach out to us if you have a request or question about any of the above-mentioned policies and regulations. We are happy to discuss alternative ways to market to your audience and remain compliant with both the TCPA and CTIA guidelines.

This is the prohibited or limited content you should be familiar with before sending promotional messages in the US & Canada. Don't hesitate to go to our Knowledge Base for more useful articles, or contact us if you have any questions or feedback.

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 15:20

Application-to-person messaging, or A2P messaging is the process of sending mobile messages from a business application to a mobile user, usually via an automated process, for marketing or service reasons.

Also called business SMS or enterprise SMS, A2P enables businesses to automate the sending of large volumes of messages to facilitate business critical messages like two-factor authentication, emergency alerts and appointment reminders '' but also more promotional and sales-type messaging.

In A2P, messages are often sent from a short code to take advantage of the scalability and efficiency that this provides.

What are the top 3 use cases for A2P messaging?

Rather than high-volume and low-value promotional messages, the following use cases are the best application for A2P messaging:

High priority alerts covering anything from package delivery notifications to real-time anti-fraud alerts, emergency alerts and extreme weather warnings, and appointment reminders.Two-factor authentication (2FA) where a OTP (One-time pin code) is sent to a recipient to verify a transaction or access to an account.Marketing messages as part of an omni-channel communication strategy where recipients only receive targeted messages that are relevant to them and reflect their past interactions with the brand across all channels. How is A2P messaging different to P2P messaging?

Although the actual messages that the recipients receive to their devices are no different, there are differences in the delivery mechanism to cater for the high-volume nature of A2P traffic.

With P2P messaging a single message is sent from one person to another, while in A2P the same message can be sent to a very high number of people. Networks handle the traffic differently and in many countries there are restrictions in place to prevent the sending of a large volume of unsolicited messages. For example, in the US and Canada any business sending A2P messages needs to register with the network carriers and abide by their rules in return for quick and guaranteed delivery.

When sending A2P messages, especially over national boundaries, it is strongly advisable to use a professional enterprise SMS solution that has a built-in global compliance engine that includes all in-country regulations and operator requirements.

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The New York Times on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, creator of the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, accusing the companies of copyright infringement and abusing the newspaper's intellectual property to train large language models.

Microsoft both invests in and supplies OpenAI, providing it with access to the company's Azure cloud computing technology.

The publisher said in a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that it seeks to hold Microsoft and OpenAI to account for the "billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages" it believes it is owed for the "unlawful copying and use of The Times's uniquely valuable works."

The Times said in an emailed statement that it "recognizes the power and potential of GenAI for the public and for journalism," but added that journalistic material should be used for commercial gain with permission from the original source.

"These tools were built with and continue to use independent journalism and content that is only available because we and our peers reported, edited, and fact-checked it at high cost and with considerable expertise," the Times said.

The New York Times Building in New York City on February 1, 2022.

Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images

"Settled copyright law protects our journalism and content," the Times added. "If Microsoft and OpenAI want to use our work for commercial purposes, the law requires that they first obtain our permission. They have not done so."

"We respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from AI technology and new revenue models," an OpenAI representative said in a statement. "Our ongoing conversations with the New York Times have been productive and moving forward constructively, so we are surprised and disappointed with this development. We're hopeful that we will find a mutually beneficial way to work together, as we are doing with many other publishers."

A representative for Microsoft didn't respond to requests for comment.

The Times is represented in the proceedings by Susman Godfrey, the litigation firm that represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News that culminated in a $787.5 million million settlement.

Susman Godfrey is also representing author Julian Sancton and other writers in a separate lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft that accuses the companies of using copyrighted materials without permission to train several versions of ChatGPT.

'Mass copyright infringement'The Times is one of numerous media organizations pursuing compensation from companies behind some of the most advanced artificial intelligence models, for the alleged usage of their content to train AI programs.

OpenAI is the creator of GPT, a large language model that can produce humanlike content in response to user prompts. It uses billions of parameters' worth of information, which is obtained from public web data up until 2021.

Media publishers and content creators are finding their materials being used and reimagined by generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Dall-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. In numerous cases, the content the programs produce can look similar to the source material.

OpenAI has tried to allay news publishers' concerns. In December, the company announced a partnership with Axel Springer '-- the parent company of Business Insider, Politico, and European outlets Bild and Welt '-- which would license its content to OpenAI in return for a fee.

The financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

In its lawsuit Wednesday, the Times accused Microsoft and OpenAI of creating a business model based on "mass copyright infringement," stating that the companies' AI systems were "used to create multiple reproductions of The Times's intellectual property for the purpose of creating the GPT models that exploit and, in many cases, retain large portions of the copyrightable expression contained in those works."

Publishers are concerned that, with the advent of generative AI chatbots, fewer people will click through to news sites, resulting in shrinking traffic and revenues.

The Times included numerous examples in the suit of instances where GPT-4 produced altered versions of material published by the newspaper.

In one example, the filing shows OpenAI's software producing almost identical text to a Times article about predatory lending practices in New York City's taxi industry.

But in OpenAI's version, GPT-4 excludes a critical piece of context about the sum of money the city made selling taxi medallions and collecting taxes on private sales.

In its suit, the Times said Microsoft and OpenAI's GPT models "directly compete with Times content."

The AI models also limited the Times' commercial opportunities by altering its content. For example, the publisher alleges GPT outputs remove links to products featured in its Wirecutter app, a product reviews platform, "thereby depriving The Times of the opportunity to receive referral revenue and appropriating that opportunity for Defendants."

The Times also alleged Microsoft and OpenAI models produce content similar to that generated by the newspaper, and that their use of its content to train LLMs without consent "constitutes free-riding on The Times's significant efforts and investment of human capital to gather this information."

The Times said Microsoft and OpenAI's LLMs "can generate output that recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it, and mimics its expressive style," and "wrongly attribute false information to The Times," and "deprive The Times of subscription, licensing, advertising, and affiliate revenue."

'-- CNBC's Rohan Goswami contributed to this report.

Don't miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

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December 28, 2023 | Part Of Washington Journal 12/28/2023 Washington Journal2023-12-28T07:00:00-05:00 https://ximage.c-spanvideo.org/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwaWN0dXJlcy5jLXNwYW52aWRlby5vcmciLCJrZXkiOiJGaWxlc1wvODM5XC8wMDFcLzE3MDM3NjUxNjVfMDAxLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciIsImhlaWdodCI6NTA2fX19 Viewers responded to the question, ''What was the top congressional story of 2023?''Viewers responded to the question, ''What was the top congressional story of 2023?''

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*This text was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.

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CHICAGO (NewsNation) '-- Democratic Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez is urging the city's Mayor Brandon Johnson and President Joe Biden to take more action to address the immigration crisis.

Lopez asserts the border crisis continues to worsen because people around the world believe there are free benefits associated with migrating to the U.S. He believes the current system is ''unsustainable.''

''I think that we should immediately hear (asylum seekers') claims, determine whether or not they have grounds for asylum, and if not, yes, we have to deport them,'' Lopez said. ''That's what the law requires us to do. Otherwise, you're just manipulating the process in a way that's completely unfair and unsustainable.''

This comes after Lopez slammed Johnson on Wednesday during Fox News's ''Hannity'' for not blaming the Biden administration for the ''failure to protect and secure'' the southern border. Lopez stated there's no more ''common sense'' in the Democratic Party.

Fox guest host Kellyanne Conway asked Lopez how he felt about Johnson blaming Abbott for a 5-year-old migrant's death in the city's migrant shelter.

Lopez said while placing blame is nothing new for Johnson, he's ''blaming everyone except the person who needs to get the blame,'' calling out Biden and Harris.

During the interview, Lopez said the U.S. needs to not only ''secure the border,'' but stop ''the draw'' which is allowing people to get ''free benefits'' being spread amongst migrants.

He told NewsNation he doesn't think migrants should be left to their own devices, as it could create more poverty and homelessness in U.S. cities, but there needs to be ''some limits to it.''

''Maybe we don't allow them to draw out the benefits as cash to do as they wish. We're seeing not only are they buying things that it's not intended for, but they're also sending the money back to help fund more people to come into this country in the same manner that they did. And if you want to stop this process, you have to be able to end the magnet, stop incentivizing people coming here,'' Lopez said.

Lopez added the Biden administration needs to start adjudicating asylum claims quickly and not let them linger for 10 years while lawmakers figure out who's responsible for taking care of migrants in that time. Some asylum seekers have been processed; however, their dates for asylum to examine where they're eligible isn't until 2031.

Meanwhile, Lopez is among several Chicago lawmakers who are unseat with Jonson's response to the immigration crisis.

On Dec. 6, Lopez ,along with Democratic Alderman Anthony Beale, and independent Anthony Napolitano sent Johnson a letter Wednesday demanding the resignation of department officials who were responsible for a failed winterized tent camp for 2,000 immigrants, the Washington Examiner reports.

This week, Illinois announced it halted construction for the camp after toxic chemicals were found in the soil of the tent site.

Lopez had been a leading voice in blasting the Johnson administration's response to the immigration crisis, according to the Washington Examiner. This fall, Lopez announced he will run for Congress to upset Rep. Chuy Garcia.

Since August 2022, nearly 27,000 immigrants have arrived in Chicago.

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John Kiriakou is a former CIA analyst and case officer, former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and whistleblower on the CIA's 'enhanced interrogation' program. Today, Kiriakou is an author and co-host of Political Misfits on Sputnik Radio. EPISODE LINKS https://twitter.com/JohnKiriakou http://johnkiriakou.substack.com FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/jonesdanny https://twitter.com/jonesdanny JOIN OUR KULT: https://bit.ly/koncretepatreon OUTLINE 0:00 - Andy Warhol 2:30 - Twitter Files 12:14 - Iraq war 15:12 - Paranoia & surveillance 26:28 - Julian Assange 29:05 - Hamilton 68 44:41 - Ukraine 54:08 - China 1:11:30 - Iran 1:18:56 - Sociopaths make perfect spies 1:27:10 - Do CIA officers kill? 1:29:46 - Mentality of Israel / Mossad 1:40:22 - Jeffrey E. 1:53:04 - America's forgotten cemeteries 2:17:19 - Jeffrey E. (Part 2) 2:20:19 - Directed energy weapons 2:28:33 - UFO's 2:35:42 - Cuba 02:50:07 - Globalism VS Nationalism 2:52:19 - Trump

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Tue, 26 Dec 2023 17:24

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it.

Learn more AI expert warns of possible biological weapons dangersThe AI revolution is here, and it's changing the world as we know it. Specifically, the world of war.

It recently emerged that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are actively using an AI system named 'Habsora' to identify targets in their conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

Commenting on the situation in Gaza and the broader realm of warfare, political sociologist Bianca Baggiarini warned that military forces already employ remote and autonomous systems as "force multipliers" to amplify the effectiveness of their troops and safeguard their soldiers.

AI systems, she added, have the potential to enhance soldiers' efficiency and accelerate the pace and lethality of warfare.

Although human presence on the battlefield will diminish as AI's shadow grows, she fears that the technology will contribute to the dehumanization of adversaries and further disconnect wars from the societies on whose behalf they are fought.

READ MORE: Top doctor warns of Covid 'pendulum swing' as new fatal variant JN.1 grips US

AI warfare will become more advanced (Image: Getty)

AI warfare of tomorrow could look more like a hyper-realistic computer game. However, unlike a computer game, real people will lose their lives.

AI's influence, according to Baggiarini, already permeates virtually every aspect of warfare, from providing support in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations, to the development of "lethal autonomous weapons systems" capable of independently selecting and engaging targets without any human intervention whatsoever. Joseph Dana, another political expert well-versed in AI agrees with Baggiarini.

AI systems, he says, already decide who lives and who dies.

It's important to remember that we are still in the age of weak AI, otherwise known as narrow AI. Strong AI, or artificial general intelligence (AGI) is not here yet '-- but it's on its way, according to a number of renowned experts.

In fact, it could be here by the end of the decade. Weak AI refers to systems designed for very specific tasks. Strong AI, on the other hand, can complete a variety of tasks, many times faster than the vast majority of humans.

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Michael Raska, an expert in the area of AI-driven warfare, told the Daily Express US that the ways in which artificial intelligence is shaping combat are numerous.

''Different militaries are responding differently to the same technological breakthroughs, such as the convergence between AI systems, cyber, and robotics,'' he noted. Hence, there are now multiple AI trajectories taking shape.

The trajectories, according to Raska, ''depend on the conceptual vision, organizational agility, and technological innovation levels'' of different nations. ''Not all militaries have the same AI vision, resources, and ability to scale-up from AI experimentation, so the impact on warfare varies,'' he added.

Super AI weapons to enter warfare. (Image: Getty)

Become an Express Premium member Support fearless journalism Read The Daily Express online, advert free Get super-fast page loadingHowever, Raska, a defense specialist at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said that advanced militaries in places like the US, China and Russia all ''have the capability to collect unprecedented data streams in real time from numerous advanced C4ISR sensors - which stand for Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4) Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), both at the strategic and tactical levels.''

In plain English, every military platform depends on many sensors and data streams.

''All militaries,'' said Raska, a man whose research interests focus on innovation and the ways in which innovative ideas fuel military-technological progress, ''strive and often struggle to integrate these sensors, and make sense of the data they provide.

The reality is that militaries are constrained by their own biases in terms of what they think they need to know from these sensors, and increasingly are overloaded with information and data from these networks of sensors.''

Advanced AI systems cut through these biases and supercharge the decision-making process.

Today, Raska concluded that ''we can see only the tip of the AI iceberg '' i.e. ChaptGPT, proliferation of autonomous weapons systems, AI-enhanced sensor-intelligence cycle, AI man-machine interface.''

Two decades from now, however, the AI revolution will really begin '--- ''with massive, long-term structural and systemic consequences.''

AI, according to the expert, ''will accelerate the organizational decay of old military bureaucracies that will be unable to change;'' It will also ''revamp military education and training; AI will rewire the military-industrial complex; and enable novel civil-military-corporate warfighting platforms.

In other words, ''rather than envisioning AI as augmenting existing military concepts, organizations, and weapons, in many ways, AI will replace them. Traditional conflict paradigms will morph into a Star Wars paradigm, in which AI will enable the weaponization of everything, where information and data will be seen simultaneously as a target and weapon; AI-driven platforms will break down civil-military silos and domains, which will make future battle spaces more fluid.''

Finally, he said, ''we will see accelerating proliferation of autonomous weapons systems - from cheap next-generation FPV drones to super-expensive hypersonic missiles, etc. The real impact, however, "will not be technological, but a major military organizational and systemic change.''

Warfare, a couple of decades from now, will look radically different --- with AI, not humans, calling the shots.

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Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are probably too young to understand the Yoko One references they're about to get bombarded with, but they'll likely get caught up soon.

The Chiefs fell to the Raiders 20-14 on Christmas Day. A loss that guarantees Kansas City will not get the #1 seed in the AFC playoff race. As the reality of the loss sank in, sadness swept over the suite where cameras found Travis Kelce's alleged girlfriend, Taylor Swift, comforting a visibly distressed Brittany Mahomes. The Chiefs are now 3-5 since Kelce and Swift allegedly began dating, and over that time, Kelce has caught only one touchdown.

Posting without caption. pic.twitter.com/LGfb6yOOzJ

'-- Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 25, 2023

It didn't take long for fans to seize on the pic and blame Swift for the Chiefs' downfall.

The biggest distraction in Chiefs history

'-- Charlie Quinn (@CharlieQuinnMMA) December 25, 2023

Two most annoying people I can think of.

'-- Sam Fisher (@jiwtim1) December 25, 2023

I'm actually glad they loss now

'-- Herm (@DeonteBanksMVP) December 25, 2023

Kelce downfall started when he started to hang out with her

'-- fcbKimmich (@w4nner7489) December 25, 2023

It's a curse

'-- Cory (@Cory_Hays407) December 25, 2023

Teardrops on my Chiefs jersey

'-- Bag Chaser Football League (@theBCFL) December 25, 2023

pic.twitter.com/GfOBc2KAeD

'-- c. (@c_ssndraa) December 25, 2023

He's washed we all know this

'-- (@biasedsixerfan) December 25, 2023

Taylor totally cursed the Chiefs

'-- C.P. Smith🇺🇸 (@smithcps01) December 25, 2023

taylor swift is destroying this team

'-- Cric Fam (@Cricfam12) December 25, 2023

Travis Kelce ever since he started dating Taylor Swift pic.twitter.com/f1yTAVWaR8

'-- NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes) December 25, 2023

Travis Kelce ever since he started dating Taylor Swift pic.twitter.com/539V5VsdrC

'-- big content guy (@bigcontentguy) December 25, 2023

As you can see, things have taken a turn in KC. It remains to be seen if the Chiefs will have any success post-Swift. Currently, Kansas City sits at 9-6 and holds the #3 seed in the AFC playoffs. The Raiders remain two games behind the Chiefs in the AFC West but are still in the playoff hunt.

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