| Post-debate and hospitalization, Trump falls further behind Biden in national polls Posted: 06 Oct 2020 12:09 PM PDT  With the 2020 election exactly four weeks away, former Vice President Joe Biden is leading President Trump in every national poll, opening up a significant advantage in surveys taken since the first presidential debate.
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| CDC officials are reportedly horrified their boss wrote a letter excusing Mike Pence from their own quarantine guidance Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:07 PM PDT  Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are reportedly flabbergasted that their boss, CDC chief Robert Redfield, took the extraordinary step of signing a letter excusing Vice President Mike Pence from quarantining.While Pence has so far tested negative for coronavirus, over a dozen people in Trump's orbit have been diagnosed with the disease since last week. Nevertheless, following a "detailed discussion" with Trump's doctor about Pence's chances of exposure to the disease, Redfield determined that "from a public health standpoint, it is safe for the vice president to participate in the upcoming vice-presidential debate.""To me, if we are not involved in the investigation, I don't know how we could make that determination," one CDC official told The Washington Post anonymously. "We should stick to our guidance. You should be quarantined for 14 days if exposed." Another CDC official expressed dismay that such a letter was written by the agency's chief at all: "Pence should have asked for a private entity to endorse he was 'clean.' Using his special privileged access to the nation's top public health official is disturbing."According to the CDC website, "For COVID-19, a close contact is anyone who was within six feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes." But the Post points out, "Pence attended the Rose Garden ceremony two Saturdays ago marking the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett — an event attended by several others since diagnosed with COVID-19."More stories from theweek.com The myth of Mike Pence's appeal Trump is shockingly bad at this Is Joe Biden the Konrad Adenauer of the U.S.?
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| Volcanic eruption turned man's brain into glass, 'froze' brain cells 2,000 years ago, scientists find Posted: 06 Oct 2020 06:09 AM PDT  Italian scientists found intact brain cells in a man who was killed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
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| St. Louis husband and wife who pointed guns at protesters are indicted Posted: 06 Oct 2020 05:11 PM PDT  Mark and Patricia McCloskey were each indicted on charges of exhibiting a firearm and tampering with evidence.
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| Violence erupts in Brooklyn as Hasidic community objects to new coronavirus curbs Posted: 07 Oct 2020 10:07 AM PDT  Angry protests erupted in Brooklyn as hundreds of members of the local orthodox Jewish community took to the streets to demonstrate against strict coronavirus restrictions imposed by New York's state governor, Andrew Cuomo. At least one person was injured in chaotic scenes in the Borough Park neighbourhood in which Hasidic men, mainly without masks, started fires as the protests intensified around midnight. Chanting "Jewish lives matter", the crowd chased away two sheriffs deputies. Shouting "snitch", the mob turned on a Hasidic man who was suspected of disloyalty; he was treated overnight at a nearby hospital, A photographer was also knocked to the ground.
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| Letters to the Editor: Amy Coney Barrett's 'textualism' is less extreme than liberals make it out to be Posted: 06 Oct 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The "textualism" advocated by Antonin Scalia and Amy Coney Barrett merely demands that laws be applied according to how they are written.
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| US surgeon general cited for being in closed Hawaii park Posted: 06 Oct 2020 01:20 PM PDT  The U.S. surgeon general was cited for being in a closed Hawaii park in August while in the islands helping with surge testing amid a spike in coronavirus cases, according to a criminal complaint filed in court. A Honolulu police officer cited Jerome Adams after seeing him with two men "looking at the view taking pictures" at Kualoa Regional Park on Oahu's northeastern coast, the citation said. Adams told the officer he was visiting Hawaii to work with the governor for COVID-19 and didn't know parks were closed.
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| Biden: If Trump still has COVID-19 'we shouldn’t have a debate' Posted: 06 Oct 2020 04:59 PM PDT  Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that if President Trump is still testing positive for COVID-19 that the two candidates "shouldn't have a debate."
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| Nearly two decades after US invasion, Afghans fear Taliban return Posted: 05 Oct 2020 11:38 PM PDT  Almost two decades after the United States launched air strikes against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime and started what would become America's longest-ever war, the hardline group are in a stronger position than ever.
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| Rhea Chakraborty: Bollywood actor granted bail after nearly a month Posted: 07 Oct 2020 01:40 AM PDT  She was arrested in a drugs case related to the death of her actor-boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput.
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| Postal worker charged after nearly 2,000 pieces of mail, including ballots, found in trash Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:47 PM PDT  U.S. Attorney Sara Merin said Nicholas Beauchene admitted to dumping the mail, though there was "no indication that there was any political motive."
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| New questions arise after chemical weapons body confirms Novichok in Navalny's blood Posted: 07 Oct 2020 07:01 AM PDT  "This publicly unknown nerve agent has, to date, not been officially listed by the OPCW," the German government said.
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| An earlier universe existed before the Big Bang, and can still be observed today, says Nobel winner Posted: 06 Oct 2020 10:43 AM PDT  An earlier universe existed before the Big Bang and can still be observed today, Sir Roger Penrose has said, as he received the Nobel Prize for Physics. Sir Roger, 89, who won the honour for his seminal work proving that black holes exist, said he had found six 'warm' points in the sky (dubbed 'Hawking Points') which are around eight times the diameter of the Moon. They are named after Prof Stephen Hawking, who theorised that black holes 'leak' radiation and eventually evaporate away entirely. The timescale for the complete evaporation of a black hole is huge, possibly longer than the age of our current universe, making them impossible to detect. However, Sir Roger believes that 'dead' black holes from earlier universes or 'aeons' are observable now. If true, it would prove Hawking's theories were correct.
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| NYC Orthodox Community Holds Protest Over New COVID Restrictions, Chants ‘Jewish Lives Matter’ Posted: 07 Oct 2020 05:28 AM PDT  Hundreds of members of the Borough Park Orthodox community filled the streets Tuesday night to protest new restrictions imposed on neighborhoods with a surge in COVID-19 cases, which include a limit on synagogue attendance and the closure of schools and non-essential businesses.The demonstrations, held into early Wednesday morning, grew more chaotic as the night wore on and protesters resisted orders to disperse: one person was injured "from a physical confrontation with other congregant(s)," protesters set a fire in the middle of a crosswalk and threw cardboard boxes and masks into the flames, according to NBC New York.A significant part of Borough Park faces the new tightened restrictions which limits houses of worship to 10 people or 25 percent capacity and completely closes schools and non-essential businesses. The area is subject to the most restrictive of three color-coded categories which are assigned by coronavirus case data.The neighborhood is among nine in New York City's "red zone" where the coronavirus positivity rate has held above 3 percent for seven straight days. Some members of the Orthodox community say they feel they have been unfairly blamed for the rise in cases.Community activist Heshy Tischler spoke to a large crowd that gathered on the corner of 50th Street and 15th Avenue around 9 p.m., blasting New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio over the restrictions which must be enforced no later than Friday, the New York Post reported. "It's called civil disobedience, we can fight back," Tischler said after tearing up his face mask. "Do not allow them to torture you or scare you," he said, referring to elected officials. At another protest on 13th Avenue, councilman Kalman Yeger told the crowd: "We are not going to be deprived of the right that we have in America, like everybody else in America, the right to observe our religion," according to Boro Park News.As demonstrations continued late into the night, the number of protesters grew, with a group shutting down 13th Avenue to vehicular traffic at one point. According to the New York Post, after two city sheriff's deputies responded to a rubbish fire at the intersection of 46th Street and 13th Avenue after midnight, protesters chased them away and chanted "Jewish lives matter" as they held their ground. The fire was later extinguished around 1:30 am by FDNY firefighters and police. Police say no arrests or summonses were issued, according to NBC.Yeger and three other Jewish lawmakers — State Senator Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein and Councilman Chaim Deutsch — released a joint statement earlier on Tuesday sharply criticizing the governor for the restrictions and the Cuomo administration's "lack of coordination and communication with local officials.""We are appalled by Governor Cuomo's words and actions today. He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities," the statement read."His administration's utter lack of coordination and communication with local officials has been an ongoing issue since the start of the pandemic, and particularly recently as we face this uptick," the lawmakers continued.The group said though they represent areas where COVID-19 has spiked, Cuomo's administration had not kept them in the loop leading up to Tuesday's decision to shut down the hot spots.They also slammed Cuomo's use of images of large gatherings of New York's Jewish community — one of which was a 14-year-old photo — in a PowerPoint during his Monday press briefing. "Governor Cuomo's choice to single out a particular religious group, complete with a slideshow of photos to highlight his point, was outrageous," the lawmakers wrote. "His language was dangerous and divisive, and left the implication that Orthodox Jews alone are responsible for rising COVID cases in New York State."
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| 4 Rohingya refugees killed in factional clash in Bangladesh Posted: 06 Oct 2020 12:37 PM PDT |
| Allegations of personal misconduct by Democrat Cal Cunningham causes turmoil in N. Carolina senate race Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:50 AM PDT  A race in North Carolina critical to control of the U.S. Senate has been thrown into turmoil over allegations of personal misconduct by Democrat Cal Cunningham, a married man who reportedly had an extramarital relationship this summer with a consultant.
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| Trump falsely accuses Biden of support for abortion 'up until the time of birth, and beyond' Posted: 06 Oct 2020 08:36 AM PDT  President Trump on Tuesday responded to Joe Biden's vow to make the Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion the "law of the land" with a tweet falsely suggesting Biden wants to kill babies after they are born.
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| The plexiglass barriers that will separate Harris and Pence at the debate probably won't stop coronavirus-laden aerosols, scientists say Posted: 07 Oct 2020 07:48 AM PDT  A plexiglass divider won't do much to stop coronavirus aerosols, microscopic particles that can hang suspended in the air like smoke.
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| Court documents call for Parkland parents to prove mental anguish after school shooting Posted: 07 Oct 2020 07:53 AM PDT  Parents who sued a school district after their children died in a mass shooting at a Florida high school are being asked to turn over their psychiatric records to prove they have suffered mental anguish.
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| India police book hundreds over 'foreign involvement' in gang-rape protests Posted: 06 Oct 2020 07:58 AM PDT  Indian police on Tuesday accused foreign human rights groups and Muslim organisations of inciting caste tensions after widespread protests against their handling of a gang-rape and murder of a young Dalit woman.
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| Russia fires hypersonic missile in birthday blast for Vladimir Putin Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:20 AM PDT  Russia's armed forces marked birthday of President Vladimir Putin's 68th birthday with the successful test launch of a hypersonic missile. The Tsikron missile, which can travel at 8 times the speed of sound, was launched on Tuesday from a vessel in the White Sea in Russia's north-west, said the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. It successfully hit its target in the Barents Sea, he added. The missile covered a distance of 450 kilometres in four and half-minutes after reaching a hypersonic speed of more than Mach 8. President Putin takes pride in hypersonic weapons, contrasting Russia's status as world-leader in their development with the Cold War when Moscow played catch-up to the US in terms of military technology. Mr Putin praised the test in remarks broadcast on television: "This is a major event not only in the life of the armed forces but also for all of Russia, for the whole country." Mr Putin has previously argued that Russia had to develop new weapons in response to the development of the US missile defence system that threatens to erode Russia's nuclear deterrent.
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| Miami Beach city manager Jimmy Morales, who led city’s COVID-19 response, resigns Posted: 07 Oct 2020 02:54 PM PDT  Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales has resigned as the city's top administrator.
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| Tana Mongeau says her promise to send free nudes to Biden voters was sarcastic: 'That would be illegal and weird' Posted: 07 Oct 2020 03:28 AM PDT  Numerous outlets and commentators speculated that Mongeau had committed election fraud by offering nudes for Biden votes.
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| Trump calls on Congress in late-night tweetstorm to approve $1,200 direct payments and small-business aid only hours after cutting off stimulus negotiations Posted: 07 Oct 2020 07:21 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's ask may prove difficult, as Democrats have rejected past Republican attempts to pass standalone coronavirus spending bills.
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| Cocaine-laden plane crashes in Mexico after airborne pursuit Posted: 07 Oct 2020 12:44 PM PDT |
| White Male Prof Allegedly Posed as Woman of Color to Bully Women Posted: 06 Oct 2020 01:45 AM PDT  "The Science Femme" claimed to be a female academic. She claimed to have upended efforts by her social justice-obsessed department to draft a statement condemning racism.And when Twitter users accused her of racism, she claimed to be a woman of color herself—and an immigrant to boot.But The Science Femme, who tweeted from the handle @piney_the, wasn't any of those things, digital sleuths began alleging late last month. Instead, they claimed, "she" was Craig Chapman, a white male assistant professor of chemistry at the University of New Hampshire. The allegations, bolstered by an internal chemistry department email, would make Chapman at least the fourth white academic revealed to have posed as a person of color in recent weeks.In three of those cases, academics are accused of shamelessly trying to further their own careers. But in Chapman's case, Twitter users who came into contact with @piney_the say the account harassed real women working in science.The University of New Hampshire said the incident was under investigation."UNH was recently made aware of allegations on social media about a member of its faculty," a spokesperson told The Daily Beast. "We are deeply troubled by what we've learned so far and immediately launched an investigation. The employee at the center of allegations on social media is on leave and not in the classroom. In order to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation the university is unable to comment further."Chapman did not return repeated requests for comment for this story. Both his account and @piney_the were deleted last week.Susanna Harris, a microbiology Ph.D. holder who currently works in science communications, first noticed the @piney_the Twitter account in July."They put out this huge long thread about how they, as a woman of color in science, a professor, made a big change in their university by shutting down diversity, equity, and inclusion work," Harris, who is white, told The Daily Beast.Harris wasn't the only person to make note of the thread, in which @piney_the claimed to have been "successful in killing my dept's woke statement on recent social unrest." The viral thread earned write-ups in conservative publications like RedState, which lauded the efforts to derail an anti-racism statement. Some academics were suspicious of the claims, coming from an anonymous professor at an unnamed university."I did a little bit of poking around to see if there was any chance this was a real person," Harris recalled. "I've been on Twitter for a while and nothing about their account said anything to make me think this is a genuine account."Other Twitter users had raised similar concerns earlier this year. @piney_the was an especially combative Twitter personality, who frequently tangled with the left online. The account described a female opponent in explicit anatomical terms on at least one occasion, repeatedly railed against transgender people, and posted censored nude pictures of former Rep. Katie Hill. Hill, a former California politician, resigned last year after those pictures were made public in an alleged revenge-pornography campaign.When users accused the account of "attacking POC [people of color]," as one did in September, @piney_the frequently claimed to be one. "You know I'm a woman of color, right? Racist," the account responded.But some of @piney_the's tweets teased highly specific personal details, like that their brother owned a brewery. Later, the account tweeted a recommendation for a small New Jersey brewery, owned by Craig Chapman's brother, as Twitter sleuths like the account @drama_science noted. (His brother could not immediately be reached for comment.) Other similarities between @piney_the and Chapman, like fandom for Chicago sports teams, New Jersey origins, and knowledge of niche chemistry fields, abounded.Some of the similarities were more glaring than others.In April, both @piney_the and Chapman tweeted the same picture of a coffee homebrewing setup, within minutes of each other, with similar captions. The picture does not appear to have been uploaded anywhere else on the internet. And both accounts tweeted about marinating meat, with both appearing to tweet pictures of the same baking tray on the same marble countertop.Although a few Twitter users had noted their suspicions about the account for nearly a year, those whispers grew louder in late September, after @piney_the came into conflict with several female academics, Harris included. She was among those who had previously tweeted in opposition to Mike Adams, a University of North Carolina professor, who was famous for his anti-feminist stances. Adams and UNC arrived at an agreement by which he would retire in August and receive a half million-dollar settlement upon leaving. He died by suicide in July.@piney_the, which had more than 13,000 followers at the time of its deletion last week, was one of the key actors stoking what Harris said was a subsequent harassment campaign against her."They were were literally saying that I had killed [Adams], that I had blood on my hands, that I had pushed him into suicide," she said. "That was when the tide changed, and when I started getting emails from anonymous people saying that they hope I die, that they will dox me."The bile renewed some of Harris's previous suspicions about @piney_the's authenticity. If she was right that this was a bogus twitter personality claiming to speak for the marginalized, it wouldn't be the first time.White academics faking their racial or ethnic identity has emerged as a troubling trope in a year of racial justice protests. In September, white George Washington University professor Jessica Krug resigned after she was revealed to have faked a series of Black and Hispanic identities in order to further her career as an Africana academic. Later that month, University of Madison-Wisconsin graduate student CV Vitolo-Haddad resigned from a teaching position after it was revealed that they had also falsely claimed to be Black.Those scandals came a month after former Vanderbilt University assistant professor BethAnn McLaughlin was revealed to have been behind a long-running Twitter account that claimed to be a Native American science professor at Arizona State University. McLaughlin had previously used the fake professor's popular Twitter account to promote a petition to give McLaughlin a tenure position at Vanderbilt. The ruse was only exposed when McLaughlin claimed the non-existent professor died of COVID-19.Ironically, @piney_the made fun of race-faking when it came from liberals, sharing a meme of Sen. Elizabeth Warren with the caption "growing up Chinese in South Detroit I struggled as an African American Jewish Boy." (Warren has dubiously claimed Native American ancestry, and subsequently apologized.)Harris was thinking about McLaughlin's case in late September when she decided to tweet her doubts about @piney_the. She asked the anonymous account to provide evidence that they were a woman of color, and offered to delete her own account if proven wrong. Other academics soon seized on the similarities between @piney_the's account and Craig Chapman's, shortly before both accounts were deleted last week.An internal email (shared by department members and previously reported by local media) from UNH chemistry chair Glen Miller suggests those fears were well-founded."The fake twitter account was in fact set up and run by Craig," read the email, obtained by The Daily Beast. "There were a large number of things written by Craig that ranged from unfortunate to hurtful to deeply offensive. These statements do not represent me, nor the collegial, collaborative, accepting department in which I have had the privilege to work for the past 25 years. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, but when those opinions are dismissive or hurtful or harmful to others, it is not ok with me. I reject those statements and their intent, wholeheartedly. But even so, I do not reject Craig. I am not giving up on Craig."The letter went on to describe Chapman as "embarrassed and overwhelmed and shell shocked. He fears that this could be the end of his academic career. I hope it is not and I told him so." Chapman would "come clean" and express remorse to colleagues soon, Miller wrote.Miller, who did not return requests for comment, also accused Chapman's accusers of being "highly motivated to reveal Craig as the person responsible for the fake twitter account, and to inflict damage on him." He urged readers not to speak to the media about the incident.Some UNH graduate students protested what they believed to be the rogue professor's Twitter activities last week, marching with signs on campus. "Craig Chapman does not speak for us," one sign read."Miller said sorry, we say get out," read another.Harris argued the incident—and other recent cases of academics feigning their identities—sap resources from some of the very people Chapman posed as."It's sort of the extreme version of cultural appropriation," she said. "They take the small protections or the scraps of support that women of color and other people have, and they use them as leverage against that exact population."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Supreme Court turns away Republican appeal on ranked voting Posted: 06 Oct 2020 04:16 PM PDT  The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a last-ditch effort by the Maine Republican Party to stop ranked choice voting from being used for the first time in the state's presidential contest. Justice Stephen Breyer rejected the request for the high court to intervene after the GOP sought to delay ranked voting in this November's presidential election until state voters had the final say through a "People's Veto" referendum. The Maine GOP's appeal was filed after the first votes had been cast by overseas voters.
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| Nearly one-third of hospitalized COVID-19 patients develop brain malfunction, study finds Posted: 07 Oct 2020 11:28 AM PDT  Almost one-third of the patients hospitalized with COVID-19 developed encephalopathy – a degeneration of brain function – according to a study by Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
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| ‘We watched him fade away’: Judge recalls the moment her son was shot dead by disgruntled anti-feminist lawyer Posted: 06 Oct 2020 05:17 PM PDT  'I know that he hated me because I was a woman. He hated me because I was Latina. And that was the source of hate. I had the 'nerve' to become a judge'
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| Joe Biden: Incoherent and Indefensible on Abortion Posted: 06 Oct 2020 05:11 AM PDT  In 1982, Joe Biden voted for a constitutional amendment to allow individual states to overturn Roe v. Wade. 30 years later in his 2012 debate with Paul Ryan, Biden claimed to believe that life begins at conception, but said that he would not "impose" that belief on other Americans.It was an utterly incoherent and deeply irresponsible position to take. If you believe that human life begins at conception, it is cowardly — not admirable or selfless — to abdicate your duty to stand up and speak up for the voiceless. It is especially shameful to abdicate for reasons of political self-preservation, as Biden did on that debate stage. Now, Biden has tacked even further left on the issue, expressing his support for repealing the Hyde Amendment last June after over 40 years of opposing such a repeal. And on Monday evening at an NBC News town hall, he even went so far as to promise to enshrine the holding of Roe v. Wade legislatively.Biden's hostile public posture toward life is incoherent, and growing more indefensible by the day.
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| Trump spends a morning at home tweeting his heart out Posted: 07 Oct 2020 10:52 AM PDT  Plummeting in the polls and confined to the White House with nothing on his public schedule, President Trump spent much of Wednesday morning in a frenzy of tweets and retweets.
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| Tesla has reportedly accused an employee of 'maliciously sabotaging' part of its factory in a leaked email Posted: 07 Oct 2020 08:33 AM PDT  Tesla told workers the alleged incident affected "a few hours" of factory run time and that the person had been fired, according to a new report.
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| Airline passenger sexually assaults sleeping 18-year-old on Indiana flight, feds say Posted: 07 Oct 2020 10:25 AM PDT  The passenger is also accused of exposing himself, the FBI says.
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| Hunt on for Indian tiger after eighth human kill Posted: 07 Oct 2020 05:23 AM PDT  Indian authorities are hunting for a tiger which has killed eight people in the last two years after another fatal attack, officials said Wednesday.
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| Iran's Rouhani slams sending fighters to Nagorno-Karabakh Posted: 07 Oct 2020 02:19 AM PDT  Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday warned that his country will not tolerate the presence of foreign fighters — "terrorists that Iran has fought for years" — near its northern border, where a conflict is raging between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Rouhani did not elaborate but Armenia accuses Ankara of sending Turkish-backed Syrian fighters to the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
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| Boeing astronaut steps down from Starliner test flight Posted: 07 Oct 2020 11:41 AM PDT  Chris Ferguson has been replaced by NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore for Boeing's first piloted Starliner test flight.
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| Duo win Nobel Prize in chemistry, a first for a women-only team Posted: 07 Oct 2020 07:03 AM PDT  A women-only team has won a Nobel science prize for the first time, for their work on a gene-editing technique.
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| Carbon capture 'moonshot' moves closer, as billions of dollars pour in Posted: 07 Oct 2020 01:19 AM PDT  While some say CO2 capture is part of the problem, big projects are being invested in as a part solution to the climate crisis * Support Guardian journalism today, by making a single or recurring contribution, or subscribingAs the world dices with the climate emergency, businesses and governments are starting to push funding towards technology that aims to trap planet-heating gases rather than let them saturate the atmosphere.Carbon capture is a controversial idea, attacked as a costly distraction from stopping emissions occurring in the first place.But last month, the International Energy Agency said it was an imperative part of the mix, warning that it would be "virtually impossible" for the world to hit climate targets without capturing and storing emissions generated from factories, power plants, transportation and other sources. The transition to renewable energy, such as solar and wind, would not cut emissions in time, the IEA said.default In an eye-catching recent deal, a consortium including Amazon and Microsoft invested in CarbonCure Technologies, a Canadian firm seeking to slash the carbon dioxide emissions of concrete. Producing cement, the key ingredient in concrete, creates so much CO2 that if the industry were a country only China and the US would emit more over the course of a year.CarbonCure works with nearly 300 concrete producers to inject captured CO2 into their product. The injected gas chemically transforms into limestone, reinforcing the concrete. Amazon will use the concrete in its buildings, including its vast new headquarters in Virginia.Currently, CarbonCure is injecting CO2 normally used in products such as carbonated drinks but hopes to "close the loop" by capturing it from cement production in order to reduce global concrete emissions by 500m metric tonnes by the end of the decade."The funding from Amazon will be critical to rapidly scale up the solution we've developed," said Christie Gamble, the director of sustainability at CarbonCure. To make a significant dent in pollution, emissions from concrete will have to be captured, or new non-concrete materials will need to be used on a vast scale even as countries such as China and India rapidly build new infrastructure."Is that possible? Absolutely. Will it be challenging? You bet," said Gamble. "This investment is one that indicates a huge amount of optimism of what is possible."This broad sweep of technology can be split roughly into two types – air conditioner-like machines that can suck CO2 directly from the air; and infrastructure that captures emissions at source and stores them, usually underground.Carbon capture is still in its infancy – there are only about 20 projects in commercial use worldwide, according to the IEA – but billions of dollars in investment is flowing into the sector. Microsoft has announced a "moonshot" climate plan that will involve direct air capture of CO2 and biomass energy carbon capture and storage, where wood chips are burned and the resulting carbon is injected into rock formations.Norway is launching a full-scale carbon capture and storage project, named Longship after the Viking vessels, while a direct air capture project for the Permian Basin in the south-western US is doubling in size and aims to suck up 1m tons of CO2 a year. The US government is pitching in, recently awarding $72m to two dozen different carbon capture initiatives."We are at a tipping point and no one knows quite how it will tip," said Klaus Lackner, an Arizona State University expert in the field who invented "mechanical trees" that remove CO2 from the air. Lackner said the world was likely to surge beyond the 1.5C global heating limit set out in the Paris climate agreement. "We are living in an overshoot world where 1.5C will be missed," he said. "We are going to have to step harder on the brakes and we are going to have to get carbon back."But many environmentalists are not keen on an idea that would burnish the green credentials of fossil fuel companies by installing carbon capture technology on power plants. "Carbon capture and storage is not a solution to the climate crisis, it is part of the problem," said Karen Orenstein, the climate and energy programme director at Friends of the Earth. "This extraordinarily expensive pipe dream is just false rhetoric propagated by the fossil fuel industry in an attempt to save itself."graphicCritics point to the example of Petra Nova, a $1bn flagship carbon capture project in Texas that was mothballed this year after the crashing price of oil made it economically unviable (supporters of the project note that it captured 92% of the CO2 that passed through it, exceeding expectations).Lackner said that retrofitting ageing "zombie" power plants with carbon capture units was often pointless, with renewables waiting in the wings to replace fossil fuels. The technology should instead be used, he said, for stubbornly persistent pollution coming from shipping, aviation and trucks that could not easily be removed by the shift to cleaner energy."Scaling up is the issue and so it needs investment and it needs regulation," Lackner said. "We've ignored the problem and now we are in a hole. We have to stop digging but we have to fill the hole up, too."Lackner said the industrial capacity for widespread carbon capture exists, but it required political will. "Much like … sewage in the 18th century, we don't see the value of cleaning up a mess until it hurts us," he said. "There's going to be irreversible harm: species are going to go extinct, seas will rise and we won't be able to unmelt glaciers. We will get there, the question is how much collateral damage we will do on the way."
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| Fact check: Joe Biden faces friendly fire – partly false – over age, pot, prisons and more Posted: 07 Oct 2020 11:46 AM PDT  An Instagram user levels strong charges against former Vice President Joe Biden but says he will vote for him against Trump
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| White House denies claim Trump returned to work in Oval Office despite Covid diagnosis Posted: 07 Oct 2020 07:20 AM PDT  The White House says that Larry Kudlow misspoke and that the president has not returned to the Oval Office
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| Texas Supreme Court rejects top Republicans' request to shorten early voting period Posted: 07 Oct 2020 02:23 PM PDT  The Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that in-person voting can begin next week, rejecting requests by some of the state's top Republicans to push back the start of early voting. The decision was the latest in a running battle between Texas Republicans and Democrats over how and when people can vote in the most populous Republican-dominated state in the United States. Texas is a longtime Republican stronghold but this year President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are fighting what could be a tight race to win the state's electoral votes.
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| He was locked in his room for seven months. His sister gave him a way out, police say Posted: 07 Oct 2020 09:33 AM PDT  A Florida child was so desperate to escape his parents that he did something dangerously extreme, police say.
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| China is getting ready to field its 3rd aircraft carrier — here's why they're no match for US flattops Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:30 PM PDT  China likes to brag about its two carriers and the third it's building, but they've got a long way to go to catch up with the US's 11 flattops.
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