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Overnight News Digest: Biden stands by his words calling China’s Xi Jinping a dictator [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-22
Tonight’s news awaits your comments. Everyone is encouraged to share their 2¢ or articles, stories, and tweets. This is an open thread.
Biden defends calling Chinese leader Xi a ‘dictator’ and says he still expects to meet with him
AP News
President Joe Biden on Thursday defended his harsh public comments on China, including calling President Xi Jinping a dictator, saying his words would have no negative impact on U.S.-China relations and that he still expects to meet with Xi sometime soon. Biden said his blunt statements regarding China are “just not something I’m going to change very much.” The remarks, which drew a formal protest from China, opened a new rift just days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded a visit to Beijing that was meant as a step toward stabilizing ties and improving communications. But Biden was undeterred. “I expect to be meeting with President Xi sometime in the future, near-term. And I don’t think it’s had any real consequence,” he said.
PM Modi’s U.S. visit yields many vital agreements
The Hindu
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden marked what they have described as a new stage in the India-U.S. relationship, as Mr. Modi was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the White House’s South Lawn by Mr. Biden and First Lady Jill Biden on a drizzly Thursday morning . Cabinet officials on both sides, and a few thousand diaspora members — some of whom chanted “Modi, Modi” — were in attendance. The visit was not just pomp and ceremony — the two sides announced a long list of deliverables spanning defence, critical and emerging technology, health, energy and mobility. Mr. Biden characterised this as a “next generation partnership” between the two countries. […] Earlier in the day, General Electric and Hindustan Aeronautical Limited announced they had signed a big-ticket MoU for the co-production in India of GE 414 Jet Engines for the Tejas Mk2 light combat aircraft. U.S. officials who briefed journalists before the announcement appeared to be patting themselves on the back for the deal, with one official describing the Indian side as being “ surprised and thrilled by the steps” the American side has been able to take to overcome bureaucratic roadblocks to the deal. India’s purchase of armed drones is also likely to be announced on Thursday.
Trump documents investigation examined New Jersey club from outset
The Guardian
Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s retention of national security material were examining evidence within weeks of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last year that he might have handled classified documents at his Bedminster club in New Jersey, according to two people close to the matter. The indications of classified documents at Bedminster so alarmed prosecutors that they focused part of the investigation on whether Trump might have transported the materials or disclosed their contents there in addition to refusing to return them to the government, the people said. […] Within weeks of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, the justice department sought to act on the indications of classified documents at Bedminster when it told the Trump legal team that prosecutors believed the former president still possessed classified materials, the people said.
Trump campaign's Election Day operations official appears before Jan. 6 grand jury
NBC News
The former deputy director of Election Day operations for Donald Trump's 2020 campaign appeared before a federal grand jury Thursday as part of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Jan. 6 and efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of presidential power. Gary Michael Brown, who has been accused of being involved in the so-called fake electors scheme after the 2020 election, was seen headed into the third-floor grand jury space at a courthouse in Washington, D.C., where a grand jury has been hearing testimony about efforts to stop the transfer of power to President Joe Biden. Stanley Woodward — an attorney who is representing several Trump aides, including Walt Nauta, who was indicted along with Trump in the Mar-a-Lago case — accompanied Brown in court on Thursday but declined to comment.
John Durham Just Made False Statements to Congress
Mother Jones
John Durham—the special counsel who was appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the FBI’s investigation of the Trump-Russia scandal and who utterly failed to produce evidence it was a hoax—testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. In doing so, he made false statements to Congress. He might even have lied. […] During his turn to question Durham, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked Durham about the infamous meeting held in Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, when Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort—three of Trump’s top campaign advisers—sat down with an emissary of the Russian government whom they were told had dirt on Hillary Clinton to share. An email sent to Trump Jr. from a business associate that set up this session informed the candidate’s son that this meeting was part of a secret Russian scheme to help Trump’s campaign. Durham dismissed the matter, remarking, “People get phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information like that.” This meeting signaled to Moscow that the Trump camp was receptive to Russian endeavors to intervene in the election to boost Trump’s chances, and Schiff expressed surprise that Durham found it insignificant. “Are you really trying to diminish the importance of what happened here?” he asked. Durham answered: “The more complete story is that they met, and it was a ruse, and they didn’t talk about Mrs. Clinton.” That is not true.
Ukraine strikes Chonhar bridge to Crimea, says Russia
BBC News
Ukraine has attacked a bridge linking southern Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula with long-range British missiles, Russian officials say. The two parallel Chonhar bridges were both damaged, said the Russian-installed governor in occupied Kherson Vladimir Saldo. No-one was hurt. Mr Saldo said it was likely British Storm Shadow missiles were used in an attack "ordered by London". The bridge is the shortest route from Crimea to the front line in the south. It is also an important link to the occupied city of Melitopol, which lies on the coastal route from the Russian border across southern Ukraine to Crimea.
Kyiv’s frustration boils as flow of Western chips for Russian missiles continues uninterrupted
The Kyiv Independent
Destroyed apartments, burnt-out cars, lives upturned or extinguished altogether: Russia’s June 13 missile attack on the city of Kryvyi Rih was, in many ways, nothing out of the ordinary for wartime Ukraine. The evening after the attack, which killed 13 civilians, President Volodymyr Zelensky came out in his daily address with a message of frustration: One of the missiles used in the attack had “around 50 components,” primarily microelectronics, produced outside of Russia. On the same evening, President’s Office Head Andrii Yermak provided more details on Twitter: The missile used in the attack was a Kh-101 cruise missile, not from old stocks, but manufactured only two months earlier. For many, Russia’s ability to continue to produce new high-tech missiles over a year into the full-scale war has defied expectations.
Ukraine has fully met two of the seven conditions needed to start EU accession talks
EuroNews
The European Commission has delivered a first update on Ukraine's progress in its path towards EU membership. The war-torn nation has fully met two of the seven conditions that Brussels established as part of Ukraine's candidacy. […] The completed reforms relate to the composition of two high-level judicial bodies and the media sector, whose legislation was amended to align with EU standards. Ukraine has made "good progress" on a third requirement – the selection of judges for the Constitutional Court – and "some progress" on the remaining four: the fight against corruption, the prevention of money laundering, the mitigation of the excessive influence exerted by oligarchs, and the protection of national minorities.
Africa’s Russia, Ukraine peace mission criticised in South Africa
Al Jazeera
At the weekend, a quartet of African leaders led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa returned from a trip to Russia and Ukraine, as part of efforts to resolve the war between the nations. Dubbed a “peace mission” by the group, the trip puzzled many observers. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, many African countries have remained publicly neutral and abstained from voting against Russia at United Nations meetings. In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. South Africa’s apparent reluctance to enforce that writ during Putin’s expected visit to Cape Town this August is being interpreted as Pretoria tilting to Moscow’s side. A recent allegation by the United States ambassador to South Africa that Pretoria was supplying arms to Moscow has also put South Africa in a diplomatic dilemma.
Bolsonaro’s Political Future Is at Risk in Brazil Election Trial
Bloomberg via MSN
Jair Bolsonaro’s political future is on the line as he faces trial over charges he abused the power of Brazil’s highest office by making false election claims. A seven-judge panel in Brasilia will hear evidence about Bolsonaro’s actions in a series of sessions that started Thursday. The allegations stem from the ex-president’s decision to convene dozens of foreign diplomats for a meeting at which he insisted that Brazil’s electronic voting system was vulnerable to fraud. The case is the first of 16 that Bolsonaro will face in the country’s electoral court, a result of his frequent claims that voting was rigged against him. Those assertions helped feed anger that ultimately resulted in riots in the nation’s capital last year. If found guilty, the man who served as president from 2019 to 2022 could be banned from office for eight years — potentially ruling him out of the next two elections.
House opens impeachment probe of Biden after GOP leaders head off push to vote now
NPR News
The House of Representatives approved a resolution referring articles of impeachment against President Biden to two committees — slowing down a push from House conservatives to try to remove the president. The resolution directs the House Homeland Security and House Judiciary panels to examine any evidence of wrongdoing related to the president's immigration policies. It was approved on Thursday 219-208, along party lines. […] Dynamics between [Rep. Lauren] Boebert and [Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene burst this week over the impeachment effort after Greene called Boebert a "little bitch" as first reported by The Daily Beast.
Hispanics officially make up the biggest share of Texas’ population, new census numbers show
The Texas Tribune
The point at which Latinos would outnumber white residents to make up the biggest share of the Texas population has been on the state’s demographic horizon for years. It seemed that long-awaited milestone was reached in 2021 when a closely watched data release last year was the first to reflect the culmination of decades of transformative growth. But confirmation did not come until this week, when the U.S. Census Bureau updated its official population estimates. In new figures released Thursday, the bureau confirmed Latinos have made up the largest share of the state’s population since at least July 2022. The new population figures show Hispanic Texans made up 40.2% of the state’s population last summer, barely edging out non-Hispanic white Texans, who made up 39.8%.
‘Just the beginning.’ An uncertain future for abortion a year after Roe’s overturn
Los Angeles Times
A year after the Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade — upending half a century of precedent on the constitutional right to an abortion — more than a quarter of U.S. women of reproductive age live in a state where the procedure is banned, severely limited or unavailable. Since the high court’s Dobbs vs. Jackson ruling that left abortion decisions up to the states, conservative lawmakers have introduced nearly 400 bills to restrict access — even as as polling has found that 61% of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Abortion is now completely banned, unavailable or sharply restricted in 15 Republican-led states across the South and Midwest. And though the procedure is legal and protected in more than 20 states, battles are being waged in courtrooms across the nation after several new restrictions have been temporarily blocked by litigation.
Oregon's Multnomah County sues fossil fuel companies for nearly $52 billion over heat dome
OPB News
Multnomah County is seeking nearly $52 billion in damages and future costs for climate adaptation in a lawsuit that filed Thursday against more than a dozen fossil fuel companies to hold them accountable for the unprecedented heat dome event in 2021. Lawyers for the county are moving forward with a lawsuit against 17 oil and gas companies alleging that the burning of their fossil fuel products, which leads to greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, was a substantial contributor to a heat dome event roughly two years ago. Ninety-six people died across Oregon as a result of the heat dome, with the majority living in Multnomah County. The lawsuit claims the fossil fuel companies “rapaciously sell fossil fuel products and deceptively promote them as harmless to the environment,” leading to disasters like the heat dome.
How heat waves form, and how climate change makes them worse
Vox
A deadly heat wave is broiling Louisiana, Texas, and Mexico this week with record-breaking temperatures reaching 114 degrees Fahrenheit. It has stressed the power grid and caused outages just as people most urgently needed to cool off. Scientists say these record highs align with their expectations for climate change, and warn that more scorchers are coming. There’s more to heat waves like this than high temperatures, though. The forces behind them are complex and changing. They’re a public health threat that can exacerbate inequality, cause infrastructure to collapse, and amplify other problems of global warming. With a large El Niño warming pattern brewing in the Pacific Ocean, 2023 may be one of the hottest years on record. But with global average temperatures continuing to rise, more records are poised to fall. […] Climate change caused by greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is poised to make heat waves longer, more intense, and more frequent.
Climate change and moisture recycling in the Amazon
Mongabay
[…] The impacts of deforestation, forest fragmentation and forest degradation are all weakening water recycling, and this is enhancing the intensity and frequency of seasonal and interannual drought. The risk is particularly acute in the Southern Amazon, a climatic transition zone where subtle shifts in ecological succession can determine whether a landscape is dominated by forest or savanna species. When and if a forest community is established, feedback mechanisms will reinforce the biotic pump, which favors an equilibrium state that supports the maintenance of rainforest. A rapid transition to a non-forest equilibrium can occur if a key environmental factor, such as drought, wildfire or logging, passes a threshold that alters the microclimate that favors forest species. When that occurs, rainforest trees suffer high rates of mortality and are replaced by species adapted to open savanna-like conditions. Climate models show that drought in the Amazon will become both more frequent and intense, while higher temperatures increase stress on tropical trees. There is increasing concern that the Southern Amazon could suffer from two or more consecutive years of drought, which could trigger a large-scale forest dieback of cataclysmic proportions. Known as the ‘tipping point hypothesis’, it is a clarion call of the dangers from uncontrolled deforestation, illegal logging and the indiscriminate use of fire by small farmers and ranchers. The impact of a collapsing forest ecosystem would extend well beyond the loss of biodiversity in the remnant forest of the Southern Amazon because it would signal a dramatic reduction in rainfall across the region – and beyond.
As Arctic warms, caribou and muskoxen slow biodiversity loss
AFP via France24
Rapidly warming conditions in the Arctic and the loss of sea ice caused by climate change are driving a steep decline in biodiversity, including among plants, fungi and lichen. But a new study out Thursday in Science found the presence of caribou and muskoxen help to reduce the rate of loss by roughly half, suggesting the large herbivores have an under-recognized role as ecosystem climate defenders. Co-author Christian John of the University of California, Santa Barbara told AFP the results showed that "in some cases 'rewilding' (reintroduction of large herbivores) may be an effective approach to combating negative effects of climate change on tundra diversity."
3M makes $10.3B settlement in 'forever chemical' cases involving drinking water
Minneapolis Star Tribune
3M on Thursday announced a $10.3 billion national settlement of "forever chemical" lawsuits involving drinking water, a significant step in reducing a litigation overload that has punished the company's stock. […] The new settlement pivots on a big federal court case in Charleston, S.C., where scores of cities and water agencies have sued Maplewood-based 3M over firefighting foam made with PFAS, known as forever chemicals, which have tainted groundwater nationwide. The agreement, which calls for the money to be paid out over 13 years, resolves all drinking water claims by public water suppliers in the South Carolina case, 3M said. But it also covers current and future drinking claims by public water suppliers who allege PFAS contamination from all sorts of products made with 3M's forever chemicals. And it provides water suppliers with money for testing and treatment technologies. As is common in settlements, 3M did not admit liability.
Supreme Court Rules Against Navajo Nation in Water Rights Case
The New York Times
The Supreme Court ruled against the Navajo Nation on Thursday in a water rights case, rejecting the tribe’s suit against the federal government in a dispute over access to the drought-depleted Colorado River system. The vote was 5 to 4, with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh writing for the majority. He said the 1868 peace treaty at the heart of the case did not require the federal government to take “affirmative steps” to secure water for the Navajo. In dissent, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by the court’s three liberal members, said the tribe’s request was more modest than that, adding that the government had violated the plain terms of the treaty and had given the tribe an epic runaround.
Clarence Thomas’ Latest Criminal Justice Ruling Is an Outright Tragedy
Slate
Many people watching Supreme Court… may have not been following the slow-motion disaster that has been unfolding in one of the less followed cases, Jones v. Hendrix. Jones involves a highly technical sounding, but practically significant, issue about when federal courts may correct wrongful convictions and wrongful sentences. Essentially the case involves this scenario: What if it turns out that the federal courts that heard your criminal case made a mistake? And as a result of the courts’ mistake, you were convicted of something that isn’t actually a crime at all (because federal law doesn’t prohibit what you did), or, as a result of the courts’ mistake, you were sentenced to more time in prison than the law says you can be sentenced to? Can a federal court later correct the error in a federal habeas corpus proceeding when you challenge your conviction or sentence? Today, the court, in a 6–3 opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, answered that question with a no. For people watching this catastrophe happen in real time, the result is not surprising. But it is a catastrophe nonetheless. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her powerful dissent, the opinion “unjustifiably closes off all avenues for certain defendants to secure meaningful consideration of their innocence claims.”
Alito in the hot seat over trips to Alaska and Rome he accepted from groups and individuals who lobby the Supreme Court
CNN
Concerns about ethics and transparency at the Supreme Court have been reignited this week after Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged attending a luxury fishing trip on the private jet of a conservative hedge fund manager. ProPublica detailed the 2008 trip with Paul Singer. Alito, the report said, did not report the trip or the flight he took on the private jet to Alaska on his annual financial disclosure, and also did not recuse himself from cases before the court involving Singer’s hedge fund. […] Last July, Alito was feted in Rome by Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Initiative, which has in recent years joined the growing ranks of conservative legal activists who are finding new favor at the Supreme Court – and forging ties with the justices. The group’s legal clinic has filed a series of “friend-of-the-court” briefs in religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court since its founding in 2020. After the high court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the group paid for Alito’s trip to Rome to deliver a keynote address at a gala hosted at a palace in the heart of the city. It was his first known public appearance after the decision.
‘Lay off’: Criticism of Feinstein strikes particular nerve with women of the Senate
The Boston Globe
On the anniversary of women’s suffrage passing the Senate, Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto tweeted a picture of the women currently serving in the body. However, as they honored the seminal moment in women’s rights 104 years ago and progress since then, several were fuming over what they see as persistent sexism in politics today regarding the one woman senator who was not in the picture: California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein, who turns 90 on Thursday, has faced calls to resign from within the Capitol and outside it after a long absence due to a case of shingles. […] Many of her fellow women senators have offered the most spirited defense of Feinstein, taking the calls for her to resign as an almost personal offense and furious with what they see as sexism and a double standard in a political system still dominated by men.
Biden world once rolled their eyes at Gavin Newsom. Now, they love the guy.
Politico
Gavin Newsom didn’t just roll out the welcome mat for Joe Biden when the president landed in San Francisco this week for public events and fundraisers. During Biden’s three-day swing through the Bay Area, the California governor forcefully embraced his new role: a top Biden surrogate. The trip came days after Newsom took that defense directly into what many Democrats consider the beating heart of enemy territory — over an hourlong interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. The Biden world is taking notice. It wasn’t that long ago when Newsom annoyed Democratic leaders by failing to sufficiently tamp down speculation that he planned to challenge Biden for the 2024 nomination. Then, Newsom frustrated them anew by suggesting they weren’t prepared to take on escalating Republican attacks on issues Democrats hold dear, including abortion rights. Now, he’s doing the attacking on Biden’s behalf.
Kemp, Warnock rise as national political stars in battleground Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock have seen their profiles grow dramatically after hard-fought election victories in the South’s premier battleground state, elevating them into potential national candidates. […] Both enter the new year with growing clout — Kemp as a governor wielding a mandate he couldn’t claim in 2018 after his razor-thin win, and Warnock after his fifth straight ballot-topping vote since joining the race to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson in 2020. And their influence may only grow as President Joe Biden presses to move Georgia earlier in the primary schedule. The potential reshuffling would give the state’s voters a greater say in the 2024 presidential nominees — and the two leaders a direct opportunity to shape the field.
Colorado prosecutors charge 6 signature gatherers for unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate
The Colorado Sun
Six people who gathered signatures to try to get a Republican congressional candidate on Colorado’s primary ballot in 2022 have been charged by state prosecutors on accusations that they submitted signatures of dead people and signatures that didn’t match voter files. One of the people was charged in February, while the other five were charged last week, according to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which announced the charges Tuesday. The six people gathered signatures for Republican Carl Andersen, a Woodland Park businessman, who sought to qualify for the primary ballot for the 7th Congressional District. But an unusually high number of the signatures gathered were disqualified by the Secretary of State’s Office and Anderson failed to make the ballot.
AG announces charges in fake signature scandal that torpedoed 5 GOP governor hopefuls
Detroit Free Press
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced charges Thursday arising from the fake nominating petition signatures that resulted in the disqualification of five Republican candidates for governor in 2022. Charges were filed Tuesday in 37th District Court in Warren against three defendants, court records show. […] Nessel said that companies … took more than $700,000 in payments from six candidates for governor and three judicial candidates. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley, who qualified for the ballot with valid signatures, received no signatures in return for the money he paid the defendants, she said. Two judicial candidates were disqualified from the ballot and one realized the signatures were largely bogus and decided not to submit them, she said.
Indiana Moms for Liberty Chapter Apologizes for Quoting Hitler in First Newsletter
The Daily Beast
An Indiana chapter of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty is walking back its decision to quote Adolf Hitler at the top of its first-ever newsletter. Founded in 2021, Moms for Liberty is a well-funded nonprofit that has been at the forefront of campaigns to curtail education about race, gender, and LGBT issues in schools, as well as efforts to promote charter and private schools over public classrooms. The group has a national leadership team as well as local chapters, which have launched pressure campaigns and school board bids at a local level. The group’s anti-LGBT work recently earned it a hate group designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Though Moms for Liberty disputes the hate group label, copy-pasting the Führer probably isn’t helping. In its inaugural newsletter, “The Parent Brigade,” the Moms for Liberty chapter of Hamilton County, Indiana, included a Hitler quote at the top of the page. “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINs the future,” read the quote, first reported by the Indianapolis Star. (The capitalization was Moms for Liberty’s stylistic choice…) On Thursday morning, the group updated its Facebook post about the newsletter to clarify that Hitler is bad.
Australia says Twitter is top platform for online hate, demands explanation
Reuters
An Australian cyber regulator on Thursday said it has demanded Twitter explain its handling of online hate as the microblog has become the country's most complained-about platform since new owner Elon Musk lifted bans on a reported 62,000 accounts. The demand builds on a campaign by the eSafety Commissioner to make the website more accountable after Musk, one of the world's richest people, bought it for $44 billion in October with a promise to restore its commitment to free speech. […] Twitter must respond to the eSafety Commissioner within 28 days or face a fine of nearly A$700,000 ($473,480) per day.
Is Fukushima wastewater release safe? What the science says
Nature
Despite concerns from several nations and international groups, Japan is pressing ahead with plans to release water contaminated by the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. Starting sometime this year and continuing for the next 30 years, Japan will slowly release treated water stored in tanks at the site into the ocean through a pipeline extending one kilometre from the coast. But just how safe is the water to the marine environment and humans across the Pacific region? […] Jim Smith, an environmental scientist at the University of Portsmouth, UK, says the risk this poses to nations around the Pacific Ocean will probably be negligible. “I always hesitate to say zero, but close to zero,” he says. “The nearest Pacific island is about 2,000 kilometres away.” He argues that a greater risk is posed by keeping the treated water on-site. “The risk of another earthquake or a typhoon causing a leak of a tank is higher, and they’re running out of space.” […] Last year, the US National Association of Marine Laboratories in Herndon, Virginia, also voiced its opposition to the planned release, saying that there was “a lack of adequate and accurate scientific data supporting Japan’s assertion of safety”. The Philippine government has also called for Japan to reconsider releasing the water into the Pacific.
Undersea mountains help lubricate ‘slow slip’ earthquakes
Science
In 2001, geoscientists reported a completely new kind of earthquake at a subduction zone, a seam where a tectonic plate of ocean crust dives under a continent. Subduction zones were previously thought to behave in one of two ways: either creeping along steadily and smoothly, without any tremors at all, or sticking for decades or centuries and then rupturing catastrophically in the world’s largest earthquakes. But geoscientists now know subduction zones often take a middle path: GPS sensors have shown they can slip in quiet, nearly imperceptible earthquakes that last weeks or months. What they haven’t known is why. Evidence from the Hikurangi subduction zone in New Zealand now suggests these “slow slip” events often depend on seamounts, the underwater volcanoes that stud the sea floor in large numbers. You might expect a mountain swallowed up by a fault to act as a sticking point. But it turns out that many seamounts provide the grease, says Nathan Bangs, a marine geophysicist at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin and lead author of a new 3D survey of Hikurangi, published earlier this month in Nature Geoscience. “A lot of the intuition doesn’t seem to be applying here,” he says. “You think it’s doing one thing, and it’s doing something else.” Slow slip events are not simply an academic curiosity, adds Laura Wallace, a UT Austin geodesist. “Understanding where slow slip is happening versus where faults are locked up is important for seismic hazard assessments,” she says.
Space Travel Alters Gene Expression, Weakening Our Immune Systems
Gizmodo
Scientists have shown that the expression of (mostly protein-coding) genes in white blood cells changes rapidly when astronauts reach the International Space Station. This may explain why astronauts appear more susceptible to infectious diseases while in space. Evidence is mounting that astronauts are more susceptible to infections while in space. For example, astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) commonly suffer from skin rashes, as well as respiratory and non-respiratory diseases. Astronauts are also known to shed more live virus particles, for example Epstein-Barr virus, varicella-zoster responsible for shingles, herpes-simplex-1 responsible for sores, and cytomegalovirus. These observations suggest that our immune system might be weakened by space travel. But what could cause such an immune deficit?
Monarch Butterflies’ White Spots Aid Long-Distance Migration Success
University of Georgia via Science Blog
White spots on monarch butterflies’ wings help them reach their wintering destination nearly 3,000 miles away in south and central Mexico, according to a study by the University of Georgia. Researchers believe the white spots may change airflow patterns around the wings, enhancing the butterflies’ flight efficiency during their migration. The spots may also help the butterflies capitalize on solar energy during their journey. University of Georgia researchers have discovered that monarch butterflies with more white spots on their wings are more successful in reaching their wintering destination. The spots may alter airflow patterns around the wings and are believed to be linked to improved flight efficiency during long migrations. Lead author Andy Davis, an assistant researcher in UGA’s Odum School of Ecology, said, “We undertook this project to learn how such a small animal can make such a successful long-distance flight.” Davis expressed surprise, explaining, “We actually went into this thinking that monarchs with more dark wings would be more successful at migrating because dark surfaces can improve flight efficiency. But we found the opposite.”
Oldest Known Neanderthal Engravings Were Sealed in a Cave for 57,000 Years
Smithsonian
More than 57,000 years have passed since Paleolithic humans stood before the cave wall, with its soft, chalky rock beckoning like a blank canvas. Their thoughts and intentions are forever unknowable. But by dragging their fingers across the rock and pushing them into the cave wall, these creative cave dwellers deliberately produced enduring lines and dots that would lie hidden beneath the French countryside for tens of thousands of years. Now, scientists have discovered that these arresting patterns are the oldest known example of Neanderthal cave engravings. Authors of a study published Wednesday in PLOS One analyzed, plotted and 3D modeled these intriguing markings and compared them with other wall markings of all types to confirm that they are the organized, intentional products of human hands. The team also dated deep sediment layers that had buried the cave’s opening to reveal that it was sealed up with the engravings inside at least 57,000 and as long as 75,000 years ago—long before Homo sapiens arrived in this part of Europe.
LANL: Tongan Volcano Plume Produced Most Intense Lightning Rates Ever Detected
Los Alamos Daily Post
New research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters showed that the plume emitted by the Hunga Volcano eruption in 2022 created the highest lightning flash rates ever recorded on Earth, more than any storm ever documented. “The eruption of Hunga Volcano was the largest volcanic explosion since Krakatau in 1883,” Sonja Behnke saod, of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Electromagnetic Sciences and Cognitive Space Applications group and author on the paper. Powerful volcanic eruptions produce ash plumes that can create their own weather systems, providing the conditions for lightning at higher altitudes than normally seen. When the undersea volcano in Tonga erupted, it created a plume that went more than 25 miles higher than typical thunderstorms. Lightning was observed at stratospheric altitudes (12 to 18 miles), where the air pressure is too low to support thunderstorm-like lightning. This fast-rising volcanic plume may have created locally higher pressures to support the environment necessary for lightning.
Klimt's Lady with a Fan: The painting that's valued at £65m
BBC News
The Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt is best-known for the immortalising opulence of such milestones of modern art as his gold-leaf-encrusted canvases The Kiss, 1907-8, and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907. But it is a rather less famous work – one that was still sitting on the artist's easel when Klimt died from pneumonia as a result of the flu in February 1918, a month after suffering a devastating stroke that had left him partially paralysed and unable to paint – that is expected to fetch the highest price ever paid for a painting in Europe when it is sold at auction next week. Radically different in texture and tone from his better-known masterpieces of a decade earlier, the exquisitely enchanting Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan), 1917-18, estimated to sell for upwards of £65m ($83m), seems plucked almost from another world, and points to where Klimt's imagination was heading had he not fallen victim to the influenza pandemic that was sweeping the world.
US might finally force cable-TV firms to advertise their actual prices
Ars Technica
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