US may let Ukraine fire missiles deep inside Russia. Here’s why experts say it’s risky
Published in the Miami Herald on Sept. 16, 2024
The U.S. and its allies could soon authorize Ukraine to launch missiles deep inside Russian territory — a move which experts say would constitute an escalation of the war.
President Joe Biden is considering a Ukrainian request to fire Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) — long-range, American-made weapons — across the Russian border, according to the New York Times. The surface-to-surface missiles, which were provided to Ukraine last year, have thus far been limited to targets inside Ukraine.
The U.K. and France are also weighing whether to permit Ukraine to use European-made missiles — including Storm Shadows and SCALPS — to attack farther into Russia.
The western deliberations come after Iran began providing Fath-360 missiles, short-range ballistic weapons, to Russia.
The U.S. condemned Iran’s actions as a “significant and dangerous escalation.”
Global security experts said that by greenlighting deeper missile strikes on Russia, the U.S. and its NATO allies would be contributing to this escalation — which carries profound risks.
MISSILE STRIKES
“While we cannot forget that it’s Russia who launched this war by invading Ukraine, in this case it is actually NATO that is escalating to a new level of confrontation,” Robert David English, a professor of international relations, who researches Russia, at the University of Southern California, told McClatchy News.
The Iran-supplied missiles have a maximum range of 75 miles, while missiles supplied by NATO can reach targets close to 200 miles away, meaning it’s not a tit-for-tat retaliation, English said.
“We are in dangerous, uncharted territory,” English said. “Never before have opposing nuclear powers traveled so far up what strategists like Thomas Schelling and Herman Kahn called the ‘ladder of escalation.’”
Echoing this sentiment, Steve Fetter, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, told McClatchy News, “I do think there is a real chance of escalation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said as much himself.
By allowing Ukraine to launch long-range missiles into Russia, NATO “would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict,” putting it at war with Russia, Putin said in early September, according to the BBC.
Asked to respond to these comments on Sept. 14, Biden said, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”
While authorizing further strikes on Russia would be risky, there also exist risks in not acting, James Goldgeier, a professor of foreign policy and global security at American University, said.
If the U.S. and its allies do not permit these strikes, it would leave Ukraine “vulnerable to these devastating attacks and will make it harder for it to survive,” Goldgeier said. “Iran’s supply of missiles to Russia makes this more important.”
“It should be said that such long-range strikes will not ‘win’ the war for Ukraine,” Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told McClatchy News. “What they might do is deter Russia from carrying out strikes of its own, leading to a kind of balance of deterrence, which could actually aid in bringing the war to an end.”
Russia has relocated many of its military systems out of range of ATACMS, potentially blunting their impact, according to the New York Times.
Neither the White House nor the Kremlin responded to requests for comment from McClatchy News.
JUST THE LATEST ESCALATION
Since the war began in 2022, Russia, Ukraine and its western allies have “gradually intensified their actions,” Alex Brideau, a Russian foreign policy analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk firm, told McClatchy News.
For example, NATO has slowly provided Ukraine with more sophisticated weapons, including tanks, anti-aircraft missiles and F-16 fighter jets.
“Both sides have crossed thresholds, but the responses have been short of those that might trigger extreme outcomes, like a direct war between Russia and NATO or the use of a nuclear weapon,” Brideau said.
“The administration has probed Putin’s so-called red lines very carefully, precisely because they understand the dangers of escalation,” Radchenko said.
Neither side desires a direct conflict between NATO and Russia, and both have enacted measures to steer clear of it, Brideau said.
For example, the U.S. has committed to keeping American troops out of Ukraine, and “Romania and Poland have not sought formal NATO consultations when Russian aircraft have violated their airspace or crashed on their territory,” he said.
Further, Putin’s remarks about increased Ukrainian missile strikes were “vague,” giving him “room to respond without binding him to actions that would be more likely to trigger a conventional conflict with NATO,” Brideau said.
Still, this slow-moving gambit of ever-increasing escalation is perilous, experts said.
“The fact that (Putin’s) ‘red lines’ have been repeatedly crossed with impunity does not mean that red lines do not exist,” Radchenko said.
While these missile strikes on their own, if permitted, are unlikely to result in Putin responding with nuclear weapons, if faced with the possibility of humiliating defeat or a significant loss of Russian troops, it’s conceivable he could resort to the nuclear option, Fetter said.
“I do worry,” Fetter said. “It’s like walking in the fog towards the cliff with each step. You say, ‘so far, so good,’ but you don’t know where that edge is.”
Will gas prices spike in US as cargo ships are attacked in Mideast?
Published in the Miami Herald on Dec. 21, 2023
Shipping companies are scrambling to reroute their vessels in the wake of recent attacks in the Red Sea, triggering delays that could have a ripple effect on the global economy.
Over the past two months, Houthi rebels in Yemen have fired over 100 rockets at commercial ships in the Red Sea, a vital artery of international trade through which nearly one-third of global container traffic flows.
A dozen vessels have been “attacked, harassed, or interfered with,” including two that were attacked on Dec. 19, a defense official told McClatchy News.
The attacks are being directed at ships bound for Israeli ports, a Houthi spokesperson said in a post on X. They are being launched in retaliation to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which has left nearly 20,000 people dead, according to Gaza health officials, and been called a “humanitarian nightmare” by the United Nations’ secretary general.
In response to the attacks, several major shipping companies have planned to give wide berth to the region, instead seeking out alternative routes.
By bypassing the Red Sea, ships will be forced to travel thousands of extra miles to reach their destinations, causing delays and inflating prices, particularly for oil and gas, experts told McClatchy News.
However, experts disagreed about the severity and duration of such supply chain disturbances, depending on whether the U.S. Navy’s newly bolstered presence in the region lessens the attacks.
‘UNPRECEDENTED’ REROUTING
Following the Houthi attacks, “four of the largest container shipping companies” — Maersk, MSC, CMA-CGM, and Hapag Lloyd — “have announced that they’re rerouting,” Mary Brooks, a professor emerita at the Rowe School of Business, told McClatchy News.
“This is huge,” Brooks, who studies global shipping, said.
BP — one of the world’s largest oil companies — also paused all traffic through the region “in light of the deteriorating security situation,” a company spokesperson told McClatchy News.
This kind of mass course correction is unprecedented, Phillip Wolfe, the director of pricing & procurement at American Global Logistics, told McClatchy News.
“I’ve been doing this for almost 12 years and haven’t seen anything quite this drastic,” Wolfe said.
The last comparable disruption occurred in March 2021 when the cargo vessel Ever Given became stuck in the Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, delaying over 300 ships and supplies destined for seven American ports, Wolfe said.
“The Ever Given was stuck for six days, but this could go on longer than that,” Wolfe said.
Around 50 tankers pass through the Suez Canal every day, but recently “as many as 32 per day have been rerouted,” Michael Manjuris, the chair of global management studies at Toronto Metropolitan University, told McClatchy News.
“The situation is evolving quickly so the number of carriers impacted could change tomorrow,” Allen Morrison, a professor at the Arizona State University, told McClatchy News.
ALTERNATE ROUTES
Rerouted ships bound for North America are left with two possible routes, which take them through the Panama Canal or around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, Wolfe said. Both options would add between several days and weeks of travel time.
Complicating matters further, the Panama Canal, a 50-mile man-made waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is currently beset by a crisis-level drought, meaning wait times will be elevated, Wolfe said.
“They’ve already reduced the number of ships going through,” marking the first-ever restriction on vessel quantity in the canal, “so you’re going to see a delay of six to eight days extra,” Wolfe said.
Ships that elect to go around the southern tip of Africa would face even longer delays of two weeks or more, Wolfe said.
As a result, “large delays” will affect the North American market — though Europe and Asia will be impacted more quickly, Trevor Heaver, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, told McClatchy News.
EFFECT OF DELAYS ON PRICES
It’s likely that the cost of such delays will eventually trickle down to consumers, Wolfe said.
“It’s going to cost the carriers, I believe, an extra million in fuel cost to go around Africa, so they’re not going to absorb all those costs on their own,” Wolfe said. “At some point, I think, they will pass that along.”
Prices of oil and gas, which are typically very reactive to the market, are expected to hedge up, along with other general commodities, Wolfe said.
Not all experts who spoke with McClatchy News agreed on that point however. Morrison, for instance, downplayed the size of effects on North America, saying “shipping of consumer products to the U.S. from Asia — where China is the top supplier — generally does not rely on the Suez Canal. So, the impact on U.S. consumers is not significant, at least for the time being.”
“It is much more of an issue for European consumers and Mediterranean port operators,” Morrison said.
Some American markets, though, have already felt the effects of the announced reroutings, Manjuris said.
“The price of West Texas Intermediate oil is already starting to creep up. It’s creeped up one or two dollars a barrel,” Manjuris said. “This is traders saying this delay may happen, so we better price it in now for future contracts.”
If oil prices continue to rise, though, it’s likely the Biden administration will tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — as it did following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — in an attempt to offset price increases, Manjuris said.
But, in order for price increases to be significant and sustained, the Houthis would need to continue their attacks on ships in the Red Sea, a tactic which could soon be curtailed, Manjuris said.
UNCLEAR TIMELINE
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced Operation Prosperity Guardian on Dec. 18, which established a naval task force composed of nine countries, including the U.K., France and Bahrain, with the purpose of responding to the Houthis’ “reckless” attacks.
The ramped up military presence in the region should make “these diversions disappear,” Manjuris said, though he stipulated “it’s a volatile situation and in a couple of weeks this could all change.”
Pushing back against predictions of a quick resolution, Morrison said, “The situation is not going away anytime soon.”
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters on Dec. 19, “Our position will not change in the direction of the Palestinian issue, whether a naval alliance is established or not.”
“Our position in support of Palestine and the Gaza Strip will remain until the end of the siege, the entry of food and medicine,” Abdulsalam added, “and our support for the oppressed Palestinian people will remain continuous.”
A cessation of hostilities in Gaza would go a long way toward decreasing the attacks in the Red Sea, Morrison said.
“However, it may take several months for relative calm to prevail,” meaning some shipping companies may take a different tack for the foreseeable future.
Why is there a generational divide on Israel in the US? Experts explain
Published in the Miami Herald on Nov. 30, 2023
The mention of Israel and the Palestinian territories often divides Americans along generational lines — with older generations, by and large, more sympathetic to Israelis, while the young are increasingly siding with Palestinians, polls have shown.
This generational rift grew into a chasm following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, which has so far left 1,200 Israelis and more than 15,000 Palestinians dead, according to officials from both governments.
Sixty-five percent of voters 65 and older sympathize primarily with Israelis, and 52% of voters under 34 sympathize more with Palestinians, according to a Nov. 16 Quinnipiac University poll.
“Younger American voters, 18-34 are much less inclined to support Israel militarily and not nearly as supportive of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 massacre as older Americans we polled,” Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac University, told McClatchy News.
Why exactly the generations are so at odds over Israelis and Palestinians was not polled, Malloy said.
But academics, activists and public opinion experts told McClatchy News that a variety of long-standing factors — including differences in media consumption, historical narratives and demographic changes — likely come into play.
“There’s so much that flows into the views that we have,” Thomas Patterson, a Harvard University professor who researches public opinion, told McClatchy News. “I think there’s quite a lot going on here below the surface.”
MEDIA CONSUMPTION
One prominent factor likely contributing to the generational imbalance is the striking differences in media consumption by age, Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, told McClatchy News.
While baby boomers rely heavily on print media and cable television as a source of political news, millennials and Generation Z are more inclined to use social media for current events coverage, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll.
“Very bluntly, I think younger people are much less affected by mainstream media, which they see as very biased,” Khalidi said.
“A lot of students tell me that they follow young people in the Gaza Strip or elsewhere who are livestreaming or doing podcasts and on social media regularly whom they’ve come to trust over time,” Khalidi said.
Through the use of social media, young people have been exposed to the oppression of Palestinians, which often goes uncovered by mainstream outlets, Khalidi said.
Popular cable news networks exemplify this blindspot, Patterson said. “They talk about Palestinians, but they talk a lot more about the Israelis and much more about the Israeli hostages than the Palestinians in jails.”
Social media platforms, however, are far from perfect vehicles for delivering news. Americans who primarily get their news from places like Facebook and Twitter are less informed about current events, according to a 2020 Pew study.
These platforms have the power to polarize young users, sending them down rabbit holes and into echo chambers, Julie Fishman Rayman, the managing director of policy and political affairs at the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group for Jewish people, told McClatchy News.
“You like one video — whatever the political bent of it is — and suddenly the algorithm is all over you, sending you all sorts of legitimate or not legitimate sites or videos that simply validate or reinforce that message,” Fishman Rayman said.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVES
The collective narratives about Israel and the Palestinian territories — shaped by the media and influenced by proximity to historical events — have also changed over time, leaving each generation with a unique perspective, one that’s difficult to change, Patterson said.
“For older Americans, the history of Israel is different than if you’re 25,” Patterson said. “This relationship between the U.S. and Israel, and to some degree the U.S. as a protector of Israel, that’s a more deeply embedded idea, I think, in older people than younger people.”
For people who came of age in the wake of World War II, the narrative that captured the public consciousness was that of the Israelis, whose connection to the Holocaust was ever-present, Khalidi said. The story of the Palestinians, though, was largely overlooked.
“I think the time from the Holocaust is absolutely a factor here,” Fishman Rayman said, adding that Israel’s early wars with multiple surrounding countries also shaped perceptions.
“That memory, that sort of Israel as the David and the neighborhood as the Goliath — which was the prevailing narrative for decades — that narrative has been lost,” Fishman Rayman said. “Now, I think, amongst young people especially, Israel is not the David; Israel is the Goliath.”
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Another factor to consider is that younger generations tend to be more affected by social justice issues, Khalidi said.
Over the years, a variety of social justice movements, like the push for racial equality and environmental rights, have become linked to the movement to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the communications director of Jewish Voice for Peace, an organizations that describes itself as a “progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization”, told McClatchy News.
“I would argue that those movements are never exclusive to the young, but certainly are made up more strongly by younger people,” Meyerson-Knox said.
Fishman Rayman said that an idea exists “especially among young progressives that Palestinian liberation is somehow in the same vein or in line with LGBTQ rights, anti-racism, feminism, climate justice.”
She said it creates a “mental gymnastics” that allows “people to turn a blind eye to Hamas’ really truly evil subjugation of women… the willingness to put Palestinians in harm’s way.”
CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
Demographic change in the United States also is prone to play a role in shaping public opinion of Israel and the Palestinian territories, Patterson said.
Younger generations are made up of larger percentages of racial minorities, certain groups of which have historically been more sympathetic to Palestinians, Patterson said.
The decline in religious affiliation, too, has probably had an effect on the divide, Patterson said.
White evangelicals, who tend to be older, are far more supportive of Israelis than their nonreligious counterparts, who tend to be younger, Patterson said.
Younger American Jews, as well, have become “less attached to Israel,” Ted Sasson, a professor of Jewish Studies at Middlebury College, told McClatchy News. Though, this detachment partly reflects a “lifecycle dynamic rather than a generational dynamic.”
“Having said that, there’s no guarantee that today’s younger Jews will grow more attached to Israel in the future, as did prior generations,” Sasson said. “Israel’s right-wing government has alienated many American Jews, and the future of the American Jewish-Israel relationship probably depends in some measure on the future composition and conduct of the Israeli government, as well as future dynamics in the American political arena.”
Younger generations, though, are more likely to be affected by current events than their older counterparts, Patterson said.
When you’re young, your opinions are more malleable, as they’re underlied by less information, but as you age, they become more baked in, Patterson said.
“The way our minds’ work, we accumulate these pieces of information and these experiences, and they work their way into our opinions,” Patterson said. “At some point, our opinions kind of stand on their own.”
Supreme Court unveils ethics code — but it’s vague and unenforceable, experts say
Published in the Miami Herald on Nov. 14, 2023
For the first time in history, the U.S. Supreme Court now has an official code of ethics — but it leaves much to be desired, experts and Democratic lawmakers said.
The high court unveiled an unprecedented 14-page code of conduct on Nov. 13, following a series of allegations that multiple justices acted unethically.
The document includes five rules governing the court’s independence, impartiality, impropriety and extrajudicial activities.
“The undersigned justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court,” an accompanying statement signed by all nine justices said.
VAGUE AND UNENFORCEABLE
The code is unlikely to curtail unethical behavior as it’s imprecise and unenforceable, according to legal experts.
“The language in the Code of Conduct is exceedingly vague,” Paul Collins, a professor of legal studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst, told McClatchy News in an email.
“Most importantly, there appears to be no enforcement mechanism,” Collins said. “So, I read this code of conduct as an acknowledgement of the criticisms the Court is currently facing – which has resulted in historically low public approval – but not as a serious effort to address the ethical issues facing the Court.”
Multiple justices across the ideological spectrum have been accused of ethical lapses in recent years.
Most notably, Justice Clarence Thomas, a former President George H.W. Bush appointee, was accused of accepting expensive trips — including on private jets and superyachts — from Republican donors without disclosing them, according to ProPublica.
Thomas issued a statement in April saying that his travel — which he said he undertook with his “dearest friends” who had no business before the court — did not require disclosure.
The staff of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a former President Barack Obama appointee, has also been accused of morally dubious behavior. She is alleged to have coaxed colleges hosting her for speaking engagements into purchasing copies of her books, according to the Associated Press.
“Given the very serious allegations of misconduct by some members of the Court who say they have been following existing ethical standards, it is evident that this Code is unlikely to result in any real behavioral change,” Collins said.
The lack of enforcement mechanism within the code is not surprising, Stephen Wermiel, a professor of practice of constitutional law at American University Washington College of Law, told McClatchy News in an email.
“There was no way the justices were going to give to someone outside the Court the power to discipline them,” Wermiel said. “They don’t want to police each other, and they certainly don’t want someone else to police them.”
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
Before the Supreme Court unveiled its code of conduct, the Senate Judiciary Committee drafted legislation that would impose an ironclad ethics code onto the court. Lower court judges already abide by similar ethical codes, according to the committee.
“We’ve been working for 11 years to encourage the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of conduct for all its Justices, whether appointed by Democratic or Republican Presidents,” Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and chair of the committee, said in a July statement.
The court’s release of a new code of conduct shows no signs of stopping the committee’s efforts.
The code “falls short of what we could and should expect,” Durbin wrote on Twitter, now rebranded as X, hours after the court unveiled its new rules.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut and member of the committee, said the code “leaves unresolved key issues” in a statement on X, adding there’s “a lot of devil in unspecified details.”
But with a razor-thin majority in the Senate and a Republican-led House, it’s unlikely any congressional effort to foist an ethics rulebook onto the high court will be successful, Wermiel said.
Some Republicans have argued that accusations of unethical behavior on the court have disproportionately been lodged against conservative justices, NBC News reported. They’ve accused Democratic lawmakers of trying to “delegitimize” the high court because of its conservative majority.
“The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem serious about trying to have a meaningful code of ethics for the Supreme Court,” Wermiel said. “But I also doubt they have the votes to get something all the way through the Congress.”
First-ever space conflict occurs over Middle East, experts say. What is space warfare?
Published in the Miami Herald on Nov. 14, 2023
In early November, a milestone in the history of human conflict appears to have been crossed.
Israel’s Aerial Defense System shot down a surface-to-surface missile near the Red Sea, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson said in a statement provided to McClatchy News.
This was likely the first-ever instance of state-to-state combat undertaken in space, Wendy Whitman Cobb, a professor of strategy and security studies at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, told McClatchy News.
The episode highlights the growing significance of space — specifically the area just above Earth’s atmosphere — as a theater of war, experts told McClatchy News. It also serves as a reminder that subtler forms of space warfare are occurring regularly, while slipping under the public’s radar.
WHAT IS SPACE WARFARE?
Space warfare is an incredibly vague concept in search of a more precise definition, experts said.
It “is generally accepted that it includes ground-to-space warfare, such as attacking satellites from the Earth, as well as space-to-space warfare, such as satellites attacking satellites,” Martin Whelan, a senior vice president at the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research institute, told McClatchy News.
However, Brian Chow, an independent policy analyst, defined space warfare as involving assets already in space. By that definition, the recent Israeli missile interception would not count as space warfare as the missile was “not a space asset in orbit.”
Hostilities on the final frontier are not limited to active military warfare, though, Whitman Cobb said. They most often occur in more understated ways, such as through the use of cyber, jamming and laser technology.
Whether these actions legally constitute war is unclear as there are currently few laws governing space, which itself is not even clearly defined, Whitman Cobb said.
The United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty, ratified in 1967, is one of the only international agreements on the subject of space. It bans the use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, in outer space.
Still, countries regularly violate international treaties and can choose to break from them at any time, Paul Szymanski, president of the Space Strategy Center, a consulting group, told McClatchy News.
This largely toothless oversight, combined with the remoteness of space — a battlefield few can see — make it, for all intents and purposes, the wild west, experts said.
‘CAT AND MOUSE GAME IN SPACE’
“There’s just a lot that is happening in space, sort of like in the 1960s and 70s you had Russian destroyers cutting off American destroyers, sometimes accidentally or not accidentally hitting them,” Szymanski said. “So this cat and mouse game is going on in space.”
Cyber and otherwise electronic interference in space constitutes a regular part of day-to-day operations for governments, Szymanski said.
For example, the U.S. Space Force, formed in 2019, acknowledged the use of counter communications systems, which use ground-based equipment that can temporarily disable adversaries’ satellites.
This kind of interference is difficult and time-consuming to trace, making it hard to know which parties, if any, are responsible, Szymanski said.
“You wake up one morning and your satellite stopped working,” Szymanski said. “Did it break just like my computer broke last week? Did solar flares do something? Did a micrometeor hit it? Let’s spend a few days, a few weeks trying to figure that out.”
Kinetic military action has also occasionally been undertaken in space, though, until now, it’s only taken the form of anti-satellite (ASAT) missile tests, Whitman Cobb said.
“Four states have actually conducted ASAT tests to this point: the Soviet Union — now Russia — the United States, China and India,” Whitman Cobb said. “All of those ASAT tests have been the countries taking out a satellite of their own, not targeted against another state.”
In 2022, the U.S. became the first nation to commit to banning these tests, which create long-lasting debris fields, according to the White House.
SERIOUS RAMIFICATIONS
Space assets support modern life as we know it, and attacks on them could have significant ramifications for the military, the economy and space exploration, experts said.
One such possible scenario is “a ’Space Pearl Harbor’ as a shock-and-awe precursor to China’s military campaign to seize Taiwan,” Chow said.
The Chinese military could launch a large-scale preemptive attack on U.S. satellites, potentially deterring an American military response, Chow wrote in a 2015 Defense News article.
The Chinese also possess fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS), which can deliver warheads from low Earth orbit, Szymanski said.
This technology poses a grave threat to the U.S. military, which is primarily a sea power, Szymanski said. If China targeted American aircraft carriers around the globe, it could eliminate the U.S. as a world power “in one evening.”
The Chinese development of FOBS, first announced in 2019, represents “yet another step in a pointless, costly, and dangerous arms race,” according to a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Disruption or destruction of satellites — more than 6,000 of which orbit the Earth — could also have detrimental effects on the world economy, Whitman Cobb said.
“A lot of our global economy is predicated on space-based assets,” Whitman Cobb said. “We have seen instances in the past couple of decades where one satellite having a tiny malfunction has all of these trickle down effects.”
Additionally, destroyed satellites could have serious implications for the future use of space, Whelan said.
“If an adversary purposely destroys a satellite, even one of its own, it would result in a debris field that could severely limit or close off human use of specific orbits,” Whelan said.
“There’s a lot of things that could go really bad, really quick,” Whitman Cobb said. “So I really hope we don’t get to that point.”
Biden won’t be on ballot in nation’s first primary. So do his opponents have a chance?
Published in the Miami Herald on Oct. 26, 2023
When New Hampshire voters head to the Democratic primary polls early next year, one name will conspicuously be missing from the ballot: Joe Biden.
The president opted not to file for the historically “first in the nation” race in order to comply with a new Democratic National Committee primary schedule — one proposed by Biden — which designates South Carolina as first in the lineup, according to the Associated Press.
However, New Hampshire law mandates that it holds the country’s first primary, according to the AP, and state officials have said they plan to follow it in spite of the DNC’s reshuffling.
Biden’s absence from the ballot will shake up the Granite State’s primary, a contest that has had outsize influence in nominating presidential candidates, according to experts. He could still win — as voters have the option to write in candidates — but other White House hopefuls may pounce on the opportunity to make headway.
THE SHAKEUP
“Lesser-known candidates may well make efforts to use this to raise their visibility,” Matthew McDermott, a Democratic strategist, told McClatchy News.
So far, the only other declared candidate for the Democratic nomination is Marianne Williamson, an author and spiritual leader.
“New Hampshire’s primary should not be fodder for the shenanigans of a political party,” Williamson said in a statement, referencing the view held by some that the DNC’s schedule change was implemented to benefit Biden, who was carried to victory by South Carolina in the 2020 Democratic primaries.
“I will be campaigning there in deference to the laws of the Granite State, not staying away in deference to the rules of the DNC,” Williamson added.
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips is also expected to enter the race, Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), told McClatchy News.
As these long-shot opponents try to make gains, Biden’s campaign will have to decide how to frame the contest for New Hampshire voters, Scala said.
“They could just do a benign neglect sort of thing,” Scala said. “Or they could say, ‘Hey, no, we actually think South Carolina should be first, period, and therefore we discourage New Hampshire Democrats from even showing up because we don’t recognize the primary is legitimate.’”
The Biden team is not expected to launch a formal write-in campaign, “which would go against the same rules that led to his decision not to file,” McDermott said. But he “would anticipate an organic, grassroots effort to turn out voters and write-in the president.”
BIDEN VICTORY EXPECTED
Even though Biden is at a disadvantage, he is still favored to win a majority of the votes due to a number of factors, multiple experts said.
“Dean Phillips starts in New Hampshire with near zero name ID,” Scala said. “Marianne Williamson, the last time I checked, I think she was (polling) at single digits…so, I mean, 50% doesn’t doesn’t seem like an especially high bar” for Biden.
“It’s not like I’m running to Vegas and betting my house on it, but I feel he’ll reach that threshold,” Leslie Marshall, a Democratic strategist and Fox News Contributor, told McClatchy News.
Only 6% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire selected Williamson as their first choice, versus 78% who picked Biden, according to a September UNH poll. Support for Phillips, who has not formally announced, was not polled.
In addition to his dominance in the polls, Biden, as the incumbent president and longtime fixture in national politics, also has the advantage of name recognition, which is the “number one” factor affecting voters’ decisions, Marshall said.
But whether or not Biden wins in the Granite State does not matter in the grand scheme of things, Melissa Michelson, professor of political science at Menlo College, told McClatchy News.
“He’s going to be the nominee of the party regardless of what happens in New Hampshire,” Michelson said.
“Elections are purely based on numbers,” Marshall said, “and the state of New Hampshire does not have the numbers to put a candidate over the finish line or to sink them.”
BIDEN’S “NIGHTMARE SCENARIO”
Despite New Hampshire’s relatively few delegates and Biden’s favorable odds of winning the primary, a less-than-stellar performance could still spell trouble for him, according to several experts, citing historical precedent.
“Frankly, I’m not surprised Biden is completely avoiding New Hampshire,” Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, told McClatchy News. “He wants to avoid a Lyndon Johnson / George Herbert Walker Bush moment.”
Although President George H.W. Bush won 58% of the Republican primary vote in New Hampshire in 1992, his margin of victory was seen as unsettlingly small. His results “carried many ominous signs” and caused “alarm in the White House,” according to The New York Times.
Before Bush, President Lyndon Johnson, like Biden, opted to keep his name off the primary ballot in New Hampshire in 1968. “He thought it was kind of beneath him to have to run for re-nomination,” Scala said.
“The funny thing is — well not so funny if you’re Biden — but the funny thing is that Johnson wins, but his margin of victory is rather small,” Scala said. “The message that the national political media take out of that is, ‘Look at how weak Johnson is.’ And then of course, a few weeks later, Johnson says, ‘You know what, I’m not running for re-election.’”
If Biden were to win a similarly slim majority in New Hampshire, he’s in danger of being framed in the same way — as a weak candidate not supported by rank-and-file Democrats, Scala said. “That would be the nightmare scenario,” he said.
He would then face much more scrutiny in the subsequent primaries and could confront calls to step aside for a stronger candidate, he said.
“He would really need to blow the doors off in South Carolina to try to put this to bed,” Scala said.
Saving Americans held hostage by Hamas is a daunting task, ex-CIA official says. Why?
Published in the Miami Herald on Oct. 12, 2023
Over 100 people, including children, were taken hostage by Hamas militants during their unprecedented and bloody invasion of southern Israel, according to the Israeli government.
Among the captives are an unknown number of American citizens, around 20 of whom are currently unaccounted for in the region, according to White House officials.
To recover the hostages — whose exact whereabouts and conditions are unknown — Israeli officials, with the assistance of the American government, have two options, both of which would be “extremely difficult,” John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of the CIA, told McClatchy News.
‘STEALTHY’ EXTRACTION
“The first path, of course, is recovering them through special operations,” McLaughlin, who had a three-decade-long career at the CIA, said.
But a number of factors make extracting the captives — who are believed to be somewhere in the Gaza Strip, a seaside Palestinian territory the size of Detroit — implausible.
“They’re in the most densely populated spot on Earth that is itself in the midst of a violent military operation,” McLaughlin said. “So going in there in some stealthy way to grab people and get them out is more complicated — perhaps not impossible — but is dramatically more complicated than any other situation I can think of when I think back to hostage rescue efforts.”
Hamas, the Islamic militant organization that rules Gaza, a labyrinthian metropolis populated by 2.1 million people, nearly half of whom are children, has infrastructure throughout the territory and could be holding captives in a number of places. Further complicating things is the Israeli military’s besieging and bombarding of the strip, which has killed over 1,000 people and injured some 5,339 more, according to Palestinian health officials. It’s conceivable that hostages were among those killed in the airstrikes.
“Typically you know where the hostages are in broad terms, and you have avenues of approach that can be managed to a degree,” McLaughlin said. “But at this point, without access to classified data, I don’t know and I doubt anyone knows with confidence where they are.”
It’s also possible, if not likely, that they’ve been separated into smaller groups, making any potential rescue effort that much trickier.
Intelligence officials are likely poring over satellite imagery of the area, searching for signs of movement, McLaughlin, now a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said.
“But of course, in Gaza, you have the problem of tunnels,” McLaughlin said. “You can’t yet see through dirt from space.”
Still, tunnel openings are likely visible on satellite imagery, and they could be used, along with other techniques, to map out areas where captives could be held. But this process would undoubtedly be slow.
“It took years to figure out where one guy was: Bin Laden,” McLaughlin said.
NEGOTIATIONS
The second avenue to secure the hostages would be through diplomacy, McLaughlin said.
“It would be normal in the government setting, in the sit(uation) room for someone to say ‘Should we even think about some channels that could pursue hostage exchanges here?’” McLaughlin said. “Someone should at least be asking that question.”
However, given the levels of hostility and the emotions running “sky high,” it’s unlikely that this is a realistic option in the current moment, McLaughlin said.
The Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog was unambiguous when asked about the possibility of hostage negotiations in an Oct. 9 interview with CNN, saying, “We are not conducting negotiations right now; We are at war.”
“I call on all those who have influence over Hamas to demand unequivocally that Hamas will release all the hostages and will not harm them,” Herzog added.
The siege of Gaza, which has left the strip without access to food, water, electricity and fuel, and been labeled “abhorrent” by the Red Cross, will continue until the hostages are released, Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on X.
In the case of Hamas, it may not be in its best strategic interest to give up captives, McLaughlin said.
The militant group has said it will free the hostages in exchange for the release of 5,200 Palestinian prisoners they say are being held in Israeli jails, according to the Associated Press. They’ve also threatened to kill hostages when Israeli airstrikes hit civilian targets without warning.
“All the incentives on the Hamas side are to hang onto the hostages at this point, both as bargaining tools and ways of inflicting terror, and as human shields,” McLaughlin said.
But, if an Israeli ground invasion were to take place, he said, “then the incentive on the Hamas side will be to bring the whole hostage issue more to the fore.”
Still, it’s extremely difficult to predict exactly what will happen given how dynamic the situation is, McLaughlin said.
“We’re in early days,” McLaughlin said, “We’re in an extremely volatile period now where it’s not much of an exaggeration to say almost anything could happen.”
Colonists accused of being witches were executed 300 years ago. They may be exonerated
Published in the Miami Herald on Oct. 4, 2023
Salem may be synonymous with witch trials, but the superstitious practice has its origins elsewhere. Decades before the Massachusetts town was swept by mass hysteria, colonial America’s first convicted witches were sent to the gallows in Connecticut.
Now — over three centuries later — these condemned individuals, many of whom were women of humble means, might have their names cleared.
After a yearslong push from activists, a resolution has been put before the state legislature that would exonerate them of their alleged crimes and apologize to their descendants.
“It’s a token resolution of remorse basically for the families of the victims, saying we’re sorry this happened to you; it was an injustice,” Beth Caruso, co-founder of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, an organization that has lobbied for the resolution, told McClatchy News.
“This is part of Connecticut’s history,” Caruso said. “We embrace the wonderful things about colonial history, but often the darker parts are ignored.”
AMERICA’S FIRST WITCH TRIALS
Witchcraft — which involved consorting with the devil — was criminalized by the English parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and was considered a capital offense in the New England colonies, according to a 2006 Office of Legislative Research (OLR) report.
The law was first enforced in 1647 when a Connecticut woman named Alse Young was tried and executed, making her the first person put to death for witchcraft in America, according to a state judicial branch report. A town administrator briefly noted the event in his diary, writing, “Alse Young was hanged.”
In total, at least 34 Connecticut colonists were indicted on witchcraft charges and 11 were executed between 1647 and 1665, according to the resolution. Of those who were killed, nine were women and two were men.
The women were mostly middle-aged and of low social status, while the men were relatives of accused women — “thus a matter of literal guilt by association,” John Demos, a historian and author of two books on witch hunts, told McClatchy News in an email.
“The reasons for women’s predominance are deeply psychological, I believe — with misogyny, in both men and women, as the galvanizing force,” Demos said.
The intensely religious colonists blamed suspected witches for natural disasters, diseases and other misfortunes, according to the OLR report.
Trials were initiated after a formal complaint was lodged, and a single witness testimony was enough to attain a conviction, according to the report.
If a guilty verdict was reached, the accused individual was hanged to death, Demos said.
“Connecticut proved to be much harsher in its treatment of suspected witches than Massachusetts,” Walt Woodward, the state historian emeritus said in a 2021 lecture, per a video posted on YouTube. “Whereas in Massachusetts a person had a fifty-fifty chance of gaining their freedom, to be indicted for witchcraft in Connecticut during those early years was simply a death sentence.”
EXONERATION EFFORT
For years, a group of activists has lobbied the state of Connecticut to acknowledge these early injustices with little luck, Tony Griego, a retired police sergeant and co-founder of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, told McClatchy News.
“Many of the elected officials that we wrote to over the years didn’t return our letters,” Griego said.
In 2016, he and Caruso, the author of several historical novels on witch trials, founded the Facebook page CT Witch Memorial to promote awareness of the trials.
The pair began to hear from descendants of both condemned witches and perpetrators, who were asking for something to be done to clear their ancestors’ names, Caruso said.
Several state legislators showed interest in the group’s appeals last year, and one of them requested that a resolution be drafted in January, Caruso said.
The state judiciary committee overwhelmingly voted to approve the resolution in March, clearing the way for it to be brought before the state house and senate this session.
Opponents to the resolution have said that it distracts from more pressing issues affecting living individuals, Caruso said.
“People have said ‘why not talk about current injustices, like the disparities of people in our jails,’” Caruso said. “We totally agree that those things should be addressed. But it’s not like empathy is finite. It’s a false argument that you have to choose one or the other.”
Others have argued that because Connecticut was an English colony at the time of the trials, the state bears no responsibility, Griego said.
In response, Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz, an advocate of the resolution, told McClatchy News, “Some of the people who participated in the trials actually became leaders of our state,” adding, “Who was in charge really doesn’t matter. We should just take responsibility and tell the world what really happened because we all know.”
Beyond absolving the deceased, there are other reasons to pass the resolution that could have implications for the modern world, Bysiewicz said.
“There are still some countries that have these witchcraft laws on the books, so we should take leadership and hopefully those countries change their laws,” Bysiewicz said.
Thousands of people worldwide are accused of witchcraft every year, often resulting in their death or mutilation, according to the United Nations. Women, children and people with disabilities like albinism are especially vulnerable.
“And also, in light of women being attacked in federal courts, state courts and state legislatures, I think it’s important to stand up for them,” Bysiewicz said.
Black holes have ‘indigestion’ and ‘burp’ out bits of devoured stars, study finds
Published in the Miami Herald on Sept. 7, 2023
When it comes to devouring stars, black holes are not always in the clean plate club.
In fact, many of them belch up bits of their celestial meals years later, according to a study published on Aug. 25 by researchers at Harvard University and the University of Arizona. The study, which is a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed, was published on arXiv, an open access online research platform.
“We looked at 24 different black holes, and out of those 24 we found that 9 of them showed this unexpected behavior at very late times,” Kate Alexander, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona who contributed to the study, told McClatchy News.
Using radio telescopes in New Mexico and South Africa, researchers trained their sights on the two dozen black holes located between 100 million and one billion light years away from Earth, Alexander said.
Between 2014 and 2020, they watched in amazement as the cosmic sinkholes feasted on stars only to spit up stellar material later on.
Black holes, pits with intense gravitational pull that are found in the center of most galaxies, rarely swallow stars. Instead, they spend most of their time in a quiescent or inactive state, Alexander said.
But on the off chance that an unfortunate star wanders too close, a black hole will consume it in a process that typically lasts several months or years.
“You can imagine the star getting torn apart into a long string of debris, and the black hole is slurping up that debris,” Alexander said. “It’s kind of like slurping up spaghetti. And we thought most of the action happened very quickly.”
But, when checking back in on the black holes 3 to 5 years later using radio light, researchers noticed peculiar “burps” or signs of “indigestion,” according to Alexander.
“They haven’t managed to completely digest all this stellar material,” Alexander said. “It was really unexpected because we thought by then the fireworks show seemed to be over, but it turns out there’s still interesting things going on.”
To be clear, Alexander said, the emitted stellar material never became fully ingested by the black holes.
Instead, it managed to break loose just before falling inside the event horizon, the threshold at which no light can escape. In addition to being a strange phenomenon, the burps call into question the time table over which black holes consume stars.
When observing a black hole ripping a star apart, astronomers could just be watching a “pre light show,” Alexander said. The actual gas might be consumed years later than previously thought during the burping process.
Or, the black hole burps might just be — much like human burps — the final act following a big meal.
Either way, “this is a longer process than we thought,” Alexander said. “It’s hinting at more complex physics going on.”
Radioactive wild pigs roam German countryside. Don’t just blame Chernobyl, study says
Published in the Miami Herald on Sept. 7, 2023
Though they’re known for their love of sausage and schnitzel, many Germans shy away from one type of meat: home-grown wild boar.
The tusked animals, which roam the mountainous region of Bavaria, are highly radioactive, posing a danger to those who consume them.
Their contamination has long been blamed on the 1986 nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl, but the precise cause remained a mystery.
Now, after sampling and studying the boar meat, researchers have discovered the infamous Soviet disaster is not the sole cause of the pigs’ radioactivity. It turns out, nuclear weapons tests from over 60 years ago are also to blame, according to a study published on Aug. 30 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Between 2019 and 2021, hunters provided researchers with pieces of meat from 48 boar for analysis. The tissue samples, typically sourced from the animals’ tongues, were studied for isotopic signatures.
In particular, researchers scanned for two types of the chemical element cesium — cesium-135 and cesium-137 — which can be traced directly to nuclear meltdowns and nuclear explosions, respectively.
The researchers, who are affiliated with the University of Hannover, found that the overwhelming majority of samples, 88%, exceeded the limit of cesium considered safe to consume.
While most of the contamination was caused by nuclear meltdown, nuclear explosions were also found to be important contributing factors.
“About 25% of wild boar samples exhibit such significant contributions from weapons-137Cs that the fraction of weapons-137Cs alone is high enough to exceed the European regulatory limit,” researchers said.
This high level of explosion-related radioactivity indicates the lasting effects that nuclear testing has on the environment — even in areas thousands of miles from blast sites.
Between 1945 and 1996, over 2,000 nuclear bombs were detonated worldwide, about 500 of which were exploded above ground, according to the United Nations.
“The atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted by any nation (USA; USSR; UK) impacted the entire northern hemisphere quite evenly,” Georg Steinhauser, one of the study authors, told McClatchy News.
“There is enormous upward draft after an explosion,” Steinhauser said. “By the time the fallout falls downs to Earth, the radioactive material has evenly distributed in the higher atmosphere.”
Though the study accounts for the source of the boar’s radioactivity, it doesn’t explain the strangely sticky nature of the contamination in wild boar.
Researchers have dubbed this phenomenon where the boar, unlike other animals, fail to lose their radioactivity over time the “wild boar paradox.”
“With the effective half-lives of 137Cs in wild boars being longer than the physical half-life of 137Cs, this phenomenon sometimes must have appeared like a violation of the law of radioactive decay,” researchers said.
But, rather than the laws of physics being suspended, it’s possible the pigs’ penchant for underground mushrooms is to blame.
The fungi, known as deer truffles, are soaked in weapons-grade cesium, which could help sustain their high levels of radioactivity. The research is not conclusive though.
Despite all the talk of radioactive food, Steinhauser insists the study shouldn’t spoil anyone’s appetite.
“Vulnerable food items like European wild boars are rigorously monitored and thus safe,” Steinhauser said. “Apart from that, a one-time consumption of contaminated meat does not equate unacceptable risk.”
But, with the war in Ukraine intensifying, the authors emphasize the importance of understanding the risks that nuclear weapons pose, not just in the immediate term, but for generations to come.
Monks fled burning monastery during revolt 500 years ago. Now its ruins are unearthed
Published in the Miami Herald on Aug. 16, 2023
The French Revolution, though centuries past, lives on in popular imagination, conjuring images of guillotines and Marie Antoinette’s extravagant pouf of hair.
But less is known about the German Peasants’ War, which — before the events in Paris — was the largest popular uprising in Europe.
The war, which took place 500 years ago, brought chaos and destruction throughout central Europe, leaving thousands dead and buildings in heaps of ash.
One building in particular, the Kaltenborn Monastery — a hub of religious activity in northeast Germany — was pillaged and burned, sending its occupants fleeing.
Its overgrown ruins became lost to history.
But now, researchers have excavated the ruins of the nearly 1,000-year-old structure, providing a window into monastic life before and during the war, according to an Aug. 10 news release from state archaeologists.
KALTENBORN MONASTERY
Though locals and historians were aware of a monastery’s existence, those who visited the ruins could have been fooled. Little remained above ground and the site was covered by a forest, Felix Biermann, one of the archaeologists, told McClatchy News.
But after surveying the area with metal detectors, the site was excavated, revealing “surprisingly rich relics,” according to the release.
Underneath massive piles of rubble, the abbey’s walls have been found preserved at a height of about 6 feet. The structure, built in a Roman and Gothic style, included a “stately” basilica and a courtyard measuring more than 700 feet long.
“Particularly impressive are the Romanesque architectural and decorative elements of the church, which include magnificent column bases, lintels with floral motifs and round arches with friezes,” the release said.
Also found were a number of smaller artifacts, including coins, belt buckles, book covers, jewelry, pens and scales — all of which shed light on the day-to-day lives of the Augustinian monks who once dwelled there.
The layer of debris that blanketed the site was made up of shattered glass and smashed ceramic vessels, among other things, Biermann said.
WHY WAS IT DESTROYED?
After it was established in 1118, the monastery grew into a well-endowed institution frequented by the region’s nobility.
The monastery’s wealth, in addition to its “vigorous” tax collections, induced anger among the local population, sowing the seeds of future destruction.
Then, during the Protestant Reformation, the Peasants’ War broke out in 1524 in Germany, pitting the poor against aristocrats.
Beginning as a labor strike, the conflict eventually grew into a “full-blown rebellion,” spreading into French and Italian-speaking parts of Europe as well, according to research from the University of Oregon.
Against that backdrop, the moneyed Kaltenborn Monastery was plundered and set ablaze in 1525. All of the monks living there likely escaped, Biermann said.
About a decade later, the monastery was officially dissolved as a result of the Reformation. The cloistered life of priests no longer served any purpose for the evangelical faith, Biermann said.
What the heaven? Telescope captures photo of what appears to be cosmic question mark
Published in the Miami Herald on Aug. 5, 2023
Humans have a habit of looking to the cosmos for answers to our most existential questions.
Now, the universe appears to have a question of its own, or at least the tail-end of a query.
A near-perfectly formed question mark — seemingly scrawled in a glowing celestial font — was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope in a photograph released on July 26.
The unmistakable symbol is hidden in a photo, which, at first glance, is beautiful, but not out of the ordinary.
In the foreground, a pair of nascent stars, named Herbig-Haro 46/47, are seen wrapped inside a colorful nebulous mass located about 1,470 light-years away from Earth, according to an accompanying description.
But a closer look at the fringes of the photo, specifically the bottom portion, reveals the oddity in question: a fiery piece of punctuation, the simple but expressive question mark.
“It’s something unusual, something odd,” Christopher Britt, an education and outreach scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the organization that operates the telescope, told McClatchy News.
“It’s probably a merger of galaxies happening in the background,” Britt said. “A lot of times when galaxies are growing through cosmic time, they’ll run into their near neighbors, and when that happens, the gravity as they pass by one another can strip off these tails of stars, these tidal tails.”
Other astrophysicists were in agreement.
Kai Noeske, a communication program officer at the European Space Agency, told McClatchy News that it “looks like a group or a chance alignment of 2 or 3 galaxies.”
“It’s pure chance that it looks like a question mark,” Claude Canizares, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told McClatchy News. It’s “like seeing animal shapes in clouds.”
Just how far away the shape in the celestial clouds is located is unknown, Britt said. But based on its red coloring and size in the photo, it’s safe to say it’s not close.
Distant objects appear red because, over long distances, wavelengths of light stretch, shifting into the redder parts of the light spectrum, according to NASA.
The luminous punctuation, though odd, is not the first human symbol to be spotted in space.
Colliding galaxies photographed in 2011 appeared to form an exclamation point, according to NASA. And in 2018, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a “galactic smiley face.” The universally understood symbol of friendliness was made up of warped galaxies.
“If you look at tens of thousands of objects that have been randomly distorted by either gravitational lensing or these mergers, then some of them are just going to happen to end up in shapes that look familiar,” Britt said.
When gazing up at the heavens, people also have a tendency to look for recognizable objects, Britt said.
That means that stargazers were bound to spot a question mark or some other human symbol out in the vastness of space. It was just a question of time.
46,000-year-old worms discovered on Arctic expedition. Now they’re being revived
Published in the Miami Herald on July 31, 2023
While the great pyramids were being erected, they slumbered. The Roman Empire came and went, and they carried on napping. In fact, they slept through all recorded human history.
They’re a group of roundworms, and they’ve been lying dormant in the Siberian permafrost for 46,000 years — until now.
The worms, known as nematodes, just woke up. Scientists coaxed them out of cryptobiosis, a state of metabolism cessation that can occur in extreme environments, according to a study published on July 27 in the journal PLOS Genetics.
Their awakening has “implications for our understanding of evolutionary processes, as generation times may be stretched from days to millennia,” scientists, who are affiliated with research institutes in Europe, said.
The worms’ epic snooze also begs the question: Just how long can organisms survive, given the right conditions?
DISCOVERING THE ANCIENT WORMS
Researchers first came upon the worms while exploring a stretch of permafrost — a layer of perennially frozen soil — north of the Arctic Circle in eastern Russia.
The creatures were nestled inside a chunk of soil found about 130 feet below the surface alongside ice wedges and gopher burrows. Using radiocarbon dating, researchers determined the soil dates to the late Pleistocene era and is around 46,000 years old.
Upon sequencing the worms’ genome, researchers realized the creatures were members of a previously unknown species of nematode. The new nematodes were named Panagrolaimus kolymaensis after a river which they were found near.
While invisible to the naked eye, nematodes are everywhere. They’re found on every continent and throughout the ocean. “Almost any shovel full of soil, freshwater or marine sediment is likely to have thousands of worms including new species,” according to the University of California, Riverside’s Department of Nematology.
WAKING UP THE WORMS
While the process of cryptobiosis is complicated and not well understood, easing individuals out of it is more straightforward, researchers said.
“Slow gradual thawing at room temperature is done, as it would happen in spring in nature,” Philipp Schiffer, one of the study’s authors, told McClatchy News.
With a little warm air, and some added water, the ancient nematodes bounced back to life.
The reanimated creatures were then given E. coli bacteria to snack on. Afterward, they even broke their multi-millennium-long dry spell and resumed reproductive activity, which resulted in the production of offspring.
This isn’t the first time such a feat has been accomplished. Other organisms have been known to enter cryptobiosis, researchers said, including a lotus seed dating back at least 1,000 years that was able to germinate.
But when it comes to nematodes, the newfound species are by far the oldest ever to be resuscitated. Before this discovery, the longest known period of cryptobiosis for a nematode was only several decades.
The worms’ lengthy sleep, spanning geological time frames — once thought to be the stuff of science fiction — will likely be used to advance research into longevity.
“These organisms have evolved a way to protect their cells, proteins, (and) DNA in very stressful conditions,” Schiffer said. “They stop cells, proteins, DNA from degrading. Such degradation happens when humans age.
“If we dig deeper into the genetics of what these species do doing cryptobiosis, we might find new avenues to understand human aging and maybe develop new drugs in the future that help people during old age.”
Marianne Williamson is wowing Gen Z on TikTok. But could she beat Biden in the polls?
Published in the Miami Herald on June 13, 2023
Speaking from the edge of the stage at the second Democratic debate in 2019, she railed against corrupt corporations, environmental degradation and “dark psychic forces” of hatred. With the cadence of a fired-up minister and the confidence of John F. Kennedy grasping for the moon, she vowed to overcome then-President Donald Trump with the power of love. By the time the cameras stopped rolling, the relatively unknown author had taken off like a rocket online, becoming the most Googled candidate in 48 states.
For a brief moment, Marianne Williamson had captivated the country.
Now, one failed campaign and four years later, Williamson is back, mounting a second long-shot bid for the presidency.
But this time, her viral moments are being made far from the debate stage — none have been organized by the Democratic National Committee. Instead, they’re being shot on a phone and uploaded online.
She’s tapped into the power of TikTok, with nearly half a million followers and millions of views.
“You always try to get your message heard in whatever way possible and in my case there has clearly been a blackballing of sorts in certain mainstream corners of the media,” Williamson, 70, told McClatchy News. “So, TikTok is an independent media platform that gives you direct access to people.”
Translating her virality into votes, however, will not be easy. The electorate is indeed open to a fresh face, as most voters don’t want Biden or Trump, the front-runners in their respective primaries, to run again, according to an April NBC poll.
But the odds remain stacked against Williamson, who is struggling to be taken seriously, polling in the single digits and facing an incumbent president with the full backing of the DNC.
FROM AUTHOR TO ASPIRING POLITICIAN
Unlike most White House contenders, Williamson has never held public office. She instead made a name for herself as a self-help author and self-described spiritual leader.
Daytime television viewers regularly saw her on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In one episode, she prayed for bickering sisters, and in another, she argued against a military response to 9/11.
The Texas native and West Coast transplant took the well-trodden path from the TV studio to the political arena in 2014, launching a campaign for Congress in California. She ultimately finished fourth after running as an independent in a crowded primary, according to the Los Angeles Times.
She took a second bite at the apple — a much bigger apple — when she announced her run for president in 2020, adopting an ambitious progressive platform. But, after only polling around 1 percent, she ultimately bowed out before primary voting began, according to The New York Times.
Now, she has thrown her hat in the ring once more, adopting a similar policy playbook of bold and potentially controversial proposals while casting Biden as a “typical establishment corporatist Democrat.”
If elected, among her first priorities would be scrapping the Willow Project, an Alaskan oil drilling venture, and canceling all government contracts with union-busting companies.
She would initiate an audit of “every penny spent by the Pentagon,” call for bipartisan police reform, and push for a massive slavery reparations program to the tune of $1 trillion over two decades.
More broadly, she would seek to “transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy and from a war economy to a peace economy,” which she says would include ending all fossil fuel subsidies, increasing corporate tax rates and cutting military spending.
TAKING OVER TIKTOK
In an effort to promote these progressive policies, Williamson has taken to TikTok, the popular video-sharing app that a growing share of the American population — particularly adults under 30 — turns to for news.
Her videos, which include clips from cable interviews, old The Oprah Winfrey Show appearances and self-recorded shots from her car, have been viewed over 13 million times, according to a TikTok data counter.
Williamson is “all over TikTok,” Ashley Vasel, a 25-year-old veterinarian in Boston, told McClatchy News.
“When I kept seeing her I literally stopped and said wait I don’t even know who else is running,” Vasel said.
Her content seems to have resonated with many Gen Z users, who frequently crop up in the comment sections of videos to offer their wholehearted support.
“Gen Z votes for Marianne!” one commenter said, attracting over 4,500 likes.
“I’m glad the first year I’m able to do a presidential vote there is an actually AMAZING candidate,” said another.
Isaiah Cabino, 24-year-old nonprofit worker in Virginia, has joined the chorus of sympathetic commenters, defending Williamson against skeptical Democrats.
“A lot of modern day Democrat politicians are more centrist, but they use the label progressive,” Cabino told McClatchy News. “I see her as a real progressive candidate.”
The admiration is mutual, Williamson said, noting that she is “particularly fascinated by Gen Z.”
Isaiah Cabino, 24-year-old nonprofit worker in Virginia, has joined the chorus of sympathetic commenters, defending Williamson against skeptical Democrats. “A lot of modern day Democrat politicians are more centrist, but they use the label progressive,” Cabino told McClatchy News. “I see her as a real progressive candidate.” The admiration is mutual, Williamson said, noting that she is “particularly fascinated by Gen Z.”
Her boisterous, youthful supporters have ruffled some feathers on TikTok, though, including Yeganeh Mafaher, a 24-year-old political analyst in Los Angeles.
Mafaher told McClatchy News she has been a “victim” of Williamson’s followers, saying they have shown up en masse to comment on her videos that are critical of Williamson.
“It’s kind of like they’re jumping on a bandwagon, almost treating her like a musician,” Mafaher said. “They’re not watching her old stuff. They’re just watching these short, perfectly made clips — almost like Andrew Tate-eque perfect owns that they can support, but they’re not looking at the broader person.”
ROADBLOCKS TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Some who have taken a broader look, and a deeper dive into her past, view her more skeptically.
Her history of promoting dubious holistic health advice, while criticizing vaccines and various medicines, has turned her off to many liberals, Matt McDermott, a Democratic strategist, told McClatchy News.
In her 1992 debut book, “Return to Love,” she called sickness “an illusion,” adding, “Cancer and AIDS and other serious illnesses are physical manifestations of a psychic scream.”
In recent years, she’s come under fire for calling clinical depression a “scam,” and referring to vaccine mandates as “Orwellian” — both statements she later walked back. She has said she supports science and medicine, and is not against vaccines.
Whether for those comments or other political reasons, Williamson has so far failed to gain broad appeal. Only ten percent of Democratic caucus voters in Iowa plan to vote for her, according to a May Emerson poll. Nationally, nine percent of Democratic primary voters said they’d vote for her, while 62% said they support Biden, according to an April Fox poll.
And, unlike four years ago, the DNC has said there will be no debates this time around, stripping Williamson and competitor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the chance to take Biden on face to face.
“The party that purports to be the greatest champion of democracy should not be so wary of democracy in our own house,” Williamson said while calling for Biden to debate.
“The reality is that that is just not the historical precedent in either party,” McDermott said. “It is typically always the case that the incumbent, while not literally running unchallenged, basically has the field cleared by the party apparatus.”
Without debates, substantial campaign funding and the ability to get on the ballot in 50 states — a difficult task — any campaign against an incumbent is highly unlikely to be successful, McDermott said.
In fact, only one elected president — Franklin Pierce 167 years ago — ever lost his party’s nomination while seeking a second term, according to NPR.
Still, Williamson is pressing forward with her eyes fixed on the nomination, batting away questions about impact and legacy that dog dark horse candidates.
“When you are on a tightrope, you can’t afford to ask yourself what will happen if I fall,” Williamson said.
Over half the stars we see now won’t be visible in 20 years, study says. Here’s why
Published in the Miami Herald on Jan. 21, 2023
Poet and playwright Oscar Wilde once wrote, “We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” However, maybe not for much longer.
Many of the stars we see in the night sky — whether from a gutter or a glade — will be blurred from our view in 20 years, according to a study of light pollution published in the journal Science on Jan. 19.
Researchers came to this somber conclusion after analyzing over 50,000 citizen scientist observations over a period of 10 years.
Participants across six continents were given a series of star maps multiple times each year and asked to select the one that best matched the sky at their location.
Based on the results, researchers found that, on average, the night sky grew brighter at a pace of about 10% per year. But, over time this increase compounds, like a bank interest, so after a 10 year period the sky would be 159% brighter.
The growing brightness, like a decades-long sunrise encroaching on the night, is caused by light pollution. Radiating from cars, street lamps and office buildings, our collective artificial glow outshines the dim light of distant stars, hiding them from the human eye.
Our current view of the night sky is “deteriorating” so rapidly that a clear change will be noticeable in a generation, researchers said.
A child born today, while gazing up at the cosmos for the first time, might see 250 stars. By the time the child turns 18, if current light pollution trends continue, only 100 of those stars will still be visible, researchers said.
This rate of “skyglow” is much faster than the rate of light emission growth previously measured by satellites, which cannot detect shorter wavelengths of light, the type of light most likely to scatter around the atmosphere.
‘EASY CHALLENGE TO SOLVE’
Mechanisms for reducing the ever-growing light pollution are well understood, and they typically involve paring back consumption of electricity, researchers said.
“We managed the ozone hole, acid rain was reduced (in many areas), and the terrible smog of London is no longer like it was at the turn of the last century,” Dr. Christopher Kyba, a light pollution researcher and co-author of the study, told McClatchy News. “In some sense, this ought to be an easy challenge to solve, we just need to use a bit of common sense.”
Despite the simplicity of the challenge, light-reduction measures are rarely implemented on a broad scale, researchers said, meaning current pollution trends are likely to hold.
“There are so many concerns people have in the world. You can’t always impose what you’d like to see happen,” Dr. Constance Walker, one of the study’s co-authors, told McClatchy News. “But it’s so easy to light responsibly. We should all try to use timers, energy efficient bulbs and just less light in general; you actually save money by doing these kinds of things.”
Still, if no changes are made, it’s not clear how applicable the study’s dire projections are to all areas of the globe. The data collected disproportionately came from inhabited stretches in the United States and Europe where light pollution is the most prevalent.
So, while urban dwellers will likely lose sight of many stars in the coming years, it’s possible people in the remote parts of the world free from the glare of city lights might be able to continue gazing at the same night sky.
As to what this disparity might mean for society going forward, researchers can only guess.
“Nearly every human who ever lived before 1900 would have had the experience of going outside at night and being confronted by the cosmos,” Kyba said. “Most people who go stargazing in a really dark area say that they feel very contemplative when they see that - your heart rate probably goes down, and you’re filled with a sense of awe.”
“What does it mean when a formerly universal human experience like that becomes something that only the very wealthy or extremely poor experience regularly?” Kyba said.
The lack of “skyglow” could also impact more than just the human experience. It has “shown to affect plants, animals, and their interactions,” according to researchers.