Thu-DeathSentence is Stealing Asylum Seekers To Ship Them No

Waiting to Book Your Northwest Passage Cruise?

Satellites can now measure the thickness of sea-ice covering the Arctic Ocean all year round.

Traditionally, spacecraft have struggled to determine the full state of the floes in summer months because the presence of surface meltwater has befuddled their instruments.

But by using new "deep learning" techniques, scientists have pushed past this limitation to get reliable observations across all seasons.

The breakthrough has wide implications.

Apart from the obvious advantage to ships, which need to know those parts of the Arctic that will be safe to navigate, there are significant benefits to climate and weather forecasting.

At the moment, there is considerable variation in the projections for when the polar ocean might be totally free of ice in an ever warmer world.

Having an improved insight into the melting processes in those key months when floes are being reduced, in area and thickness, ought now to sharpen the output from computer models.

Vlad the Invader Becomes Vlad the Beggar

‘Putin’s encounter with Xi in Samarkand appeared to underscore what analysts said was an increasingly unequal relationship between the two leaders.

Putin’s predicaments – a military quagmire in Ukraine, waves of sanctions on the Russian economy, and growing international isolation – meant that he now came “hat in hand” to meet with China.

Vaccination and Long COVID

Beyond the first 30 days after infection, individuals with COVID-19 are at increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease spanning several categories, including cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmias, ischemic and non-ischemic heart disease, pericarditis, myocarditis, heart failure and thromboembolic disease. 

The risk and 1-year burden of cardiovascular disease in survivors of acute COVID-19 are substantial. Care pathways of those surviving the acute episode of COVID-19 should include attention to cardiovascular health and disease.

(Yikes!  But there's good news coming.)

People who were fully vaccinated with two doses cut their risk of long COVID symptoms at least in half. Assuming these symptoms are indicative of the level of damage caused by the disease, this is also a huge decrease in the health threat generated by long COVID. Finally, it also means that vaccinated people are able to get back to work sooner after a COVID-19 infection.

The reports of these symptoms for people who were double-vaccinated was the same as people who had never been infected. This certainly doesn’t mean that people who are vaccinated can’t experience long COVID, but getting vaccinated, and keeping booster levels up, is fantastically effective not just in avoiding acute symptoms at the outset, but long COVID symptoms later.

Those New Boosters are Great (At Least in Mice)

The bivalent vaccines induced greater breadth and magnitude of neutralizing antibodies compared to an mRNA-1273 booster. Moreover, the response in bivalent vaccine-boosted mice was associated with increased protection against BA.5 infection and inflammation in the lung.

Why Don't Good Lawyers Want to Work for Previous Guy?  So Many Investigations!

Federal authorities looking into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection are investigating former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark for conspiracy, obstruction and making false statements, a recent filing by the D.C. Bar published on Wednesday showed, according to multiple news reports.

Federal investigators searched Clark’s Virginia home in June. His lawyer said the authorities recovered electronic devices as part of a criminal probe into the three Jan. 6-related charges and that only one of the seized devices was returned to him earlier this month, CNN reported.

Clark, a former environmental lawyer in the DOJ’s Civil Division, is also facing ethics charges from the D.C. bar for his involvement in pushing former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Clark’s lawyers asked for a delay in the D.C. Bar’s proceedings, citing the other pending investigations into their client — by the DOJ, the Jan. 6 House select committee and the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney — but the request was denied, according to a filing released Tuesday and reported by The Hill.

Willie Horton Rides Again

On Sept. 2, the National Republican Senatorial Committee began airing a $1.2 million advertisement online and television attack ad against Mandela Barnes, the Democratic for Senate candidate in Wisconsin, with powerful footage that was likely painful for many people in the state: a car plowing into a crowd gathered for a Christmas parade in Waukesha last winter. Six people died and 62 were injured.

The ad’s exploitation of the tragedy was in service of attacking Barnes for his stance on eliminating cash bail for certain crimes — falsely. And the slow-motion images of the suspect in the case, Darrell Brooks, who is Black, in an ad attacking Barnes, who is also Black, outraged some Democrats who likened the spot to George H.W. Bush’s infamous Willie Horton ad in 1988.

“They are taking a horrific tragedy and incident, they want to tie things together and say that’s Mandela Barnes, and that is his campaign to create these racist ideas in the minds of voters,” said Zachary Mueller, the political director at America’s Voice, a pro-immigration advocacy group.

The ad heavily implies that Brooks could not have committed the parade massacre if he wasn’t bailed out of jail for a previous crime ― and attacks Barnes’ cash bail plan, which he sponsored in 2016 when he was a state legislator.

But there are several factual issues with that line of attack.

Brooks was arrested weeks prior to the incident for hitting his girlfriend with the same vehicle he allegedly used in the parade attack during a domestic dispute. He was charged with a second-degree felony, recklessly endangering safety, and other related charges. Two days before the Christmas parade attack, Brooks was released after posting $1,000 bail.

For one, Barnes’ cash bail plan was never enacted in the state and had no impact on the bail a judge set for Brooks ― although Barnes supports ending cash bail nationally. The district attorney overseeing the case later admitted $1,000 was too low; local news outlets have reported that the DA’s office didn’t have full access to Brook’s file and due to heavy caseloads asked for $1,000 bail without having seen it.

Moreover, the 2016 bill Barnes sponsored would require a judge to hold a perpetrator in jail if they found clear evidence that the defendant would cause more harm to the community. On Barnes’ page, the campaign site asserts there was evidence that Brooks would have still been a danger to the community after he was legally barred from contacting his mother before the Christmas attack and the incident with his girlfriend, and therefore should not have been eligible to avoid cash bail.

The Senate Leadership Fund also doubled down on political attacks against Barnes after the release of an ad on Tuesday stating that Barnes would eliminate cash bail and would set “accused criminals free” into the community and not being held before trial.

The ad listed crimes such as shootings, robberies and “violent attacks” on police ― citing that the state of Wisconsin had over 300 homicides last year alone. None of those crimes would be eligible for bail relief under Barnes’ plan if the perpetrators served as a threat to society.