The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that federal authorities can continue to indefinitely detain some immigrants and asylum seekers without a bond hearing. The 5-3 ruling overturned the rulings of two lower courts that found immigrants facing prolonged detention must be given a custody hearing. But Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision does not end the battle over indefinite detention. The justices sent the case back to the federal appeals court to evaluate the constitutionality of the practice. Tuesday’s decision came a day after the Supreme Court dealt a blow to President Trump’s efforts to rescind DACA, the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gives at least 700,000 young immigrants permission to live and work in the United States. The court refused to hear a White House appeal of lower court rulings saying Trump’s move to cancel the program was unconstitutional. We speak to Michael Tan, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. https://www.democracynow.org/2018/2/28/cruel_unconstitutional_aclu_denounces_scotus_ruling[with embedded video, and transcript]
Seven immigrant teenagers in federal custody asked the Trump administration to let them get abortions between March and December 2017, but their requests were personally refused by an official known for his anti-abortion views, documents exclusively obtained by VICE News show.
All of the girls were eventually allowed to undergo the procedure, though three of them fought for and won the right in court after filing suit against the Trump administration. Their court documents reveal the lengths one Trump administration official has gone to in order to stop undocumented teens in the government’s care from getting abortions.
That official, Scott Lloyd, heads the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the care of all minors who enter the United States without their families and without authorization. Since taking over the office in March, Lloyd has kept close tabs on pregnant girls in the agency’s care, going so far as to personally meet with a girl considering abortion. In another case, he asked officials to look into “reversing” a medication abortion that was already underway. Lloyd also instructed staff to inform a third girl’s parents that she’d had an abortion after she’d told officials she feared the disclosure would lead to abuse.
Lloyd also refused to approve the seven girls' requests for abortion, documents show. These details emerged in depositions taken by the American Civil Liberties Union in December as part of a legal battle over access to abortion care for immigrant teens in government custody.
Scott Lloyd, Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, doesn’t believe the constitutional right to abortion extends to the young women in his care. Here’s proof.
The Inspector General, Horowitz, will soon release his report on Obama’s FBI & DOJ abuses. But we’ve already learned that sexual assault & harassment were rampant in Comey’s FBI and both Comey & AG Lynch attempted to obstruct justice. Meanwhile, a judge has ruled that the FBI agent that fired shots at Lavoy Finicum WILL face charges. Then Dr. Bonner Cohen talks about actual Russian collusion with “green” lobbyist groups and Dr. Jerome Corsi on harassment & bullying by the internet oligarchs — how did we get here, what needs to be done.
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
Readout of President Donald J. Trump’s Call with Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar
Issued on: February 28, 2018
President Donald J. Trump spoke today with Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar. President Trump and the Emir discussed regional developments and opportunities to further enhance the American-Qatari partnership on a range of security and economic issues. The President thanked the Emir for his leadership in highlighting ways all Gulf Cooperation Council states can better counter Iranian destabilizing activities and defeat terrorists and extremists. The leaders agreed on the importance of regional cooperation and a united Gulf Cooperation Council to mitigate regional threats and ensure the region’s economic prosperity.
This is one of the easiest moral analyses I've ever had to make. If you think it's controversial to criticise a 50-year-old man's marriage to a six year old, you are an example of someone who has been blinded by religious outrage.
Wednesday, Feb. 28th 2018: War on 1st & 2nd Amendment! - Free speech is under censorship assault by globalists while Infowars serves as the bulwark for the rest of alternative media. Furthermore, the mainstream push for normalizing gun control found victory with retail giant Dick’s Sporting Goods’ announcement to stop selling “assault-style” rifles. Also, spread the word for Thursday’s Operation Paul Revere 2018! Today’s in-studio guest is NaturalNews.com’s Mike Adams discussing current developments in natural health. Roger Stone hosts the final hour.
Donald Trump isn’t a toddler — he’s a product of America’s culture of impunity for the rich.
Cable news pundits and columnists have compared President Donald Trump as a toddler, saying he's unable to control his speech or actions. But really, his behavior is better explained by his decades-long business career. Trump repeatedly broke the rules, exploited loopholes, and settled court cases without admitting wrongdoing or suffering serious financial harm.
And Trump's experience isn't unique. America has a long history of treating corporate law breakers with far more leniency than other criminals.
The US government cannot be trusted so long as Donald Trump runs it
Published on Jun 9, 2017 by Vox
Trump’s behavior casts a shadow over everyone who serves him.
That is the simple, chilling takeaway of James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The question is whether Republicans will admit it to themselves, and if so, what they will do about it.
How should the media cover a White House that isn't afraid to lie?
Published on Feb 1, 2017 by Vox
The Trump administration isn’t afraid to get caught lying. That poses a real challenge for journalists and news networks grappling with government propaganda.
First porch rant is awhile is about guns again. Gettin hard not to talk about guns yall. Call me a radical, but I could do without wholesale slaughter. But that's just me.
Infowars and it's audience called out the censorship on Youtube as they were purging conservatives and Trump supporters, and now they have responded by admitting it and apologizing. Though this is a massive victory for Infowars, it is not the end of the info war. Meanwhile, Hope Hicks resigns, Jeff Sessions is called out by President Trump, and an armed teacher barricades himself in a Georgia school.
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
Every ten years, America readjusts its voting districts. Which state you live in determines a key aspect of that prospect: who draws the map?
In most states, politicians get to control that process. That can sometimes lead to political gamesmanship from both parties.
In early 2018, the state of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court found that the latest redistricting plan set up voters with a politically biased voting map. Which made it easier for one party to win representation in the national body of lawmakers.
The implications of this discovery are significant. A new map could be a part of a shift in the balance of power in the United States.
Mueller eyes Trump collusion, Hope Hicks out after "truth bombs"
The Beat with Ari Melber 2/28/18
After Mueller interviews, witnesses tell NBC the focus is on Trump, what he knew and when. Ari Melber on why it shows Mueller is looking into Trump's "personal criminal liability". Fmr. Federal Prosecutor Joyce Vance on why Mueller is looking at "the core question of collusion with Russia".
Fmr. Trump aide: I believe Trump Jr. told Trump about Russians offer of "dirt"
The Beat with Ari Melber 2/28/18
Fmr. Trump aide Sam Nunberg on why Mueller investigators were "not happy" with him in his interview with the Special Counsel probe and he suggests what Trump knew about Don Jr.'s secret meeting with Russians. Plus why he's "surprised" Hope Hicks is out.
Since 1998, activist Willie Hudspeth has been fighting for the removal of his county's Confederate monument in Denton, Texas. For years, he's protested at the town square alone—but in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, he's finally started gaining local support.
VICE met up with Willie to find out why he's so passionate about bringing the monument down, how his movement is gaining steam, and what—if anything—can be done to get it removed.
Slavery remains one of the most uncomfortable subjects in the history of the United States of America. Indeed, it can hardly be relegated to being only American “history” as we’ll soon see in greater depth. There are large groups of historical revisionists that have a vested interest in trying to downplay it or reshape it in a way that’s more comfortable for their agendas. There are also some people that have grown up with overly simplistic versions of slavery in the past and its current state. We here at TopTenz will strive do our small part to push back against both.
10. “Abolitionism was a Popular Northern Movement” 9. “The American Civil War was Not About Slavery” 8. “Slaves Fought for the Confederacy” 7. “Slaves were Rarely Killed by Labor” 6. “Freed Slaves Took Control of Southern Governments After the American Civil War” 5. “Slaves Were Only Owned by the Wealthiest” 4. “Even if the South Won the Civil War, Slavery Would Have Ended Shortly After” 3. “The First Slaves in America Were White People!” 2. “Slavery was a Southern Problem” 1. “Slavery is Illegal in America”
Mueller examining Trump efforts to oust Sessions: Report
All In with Chris Hayes 2/28/18
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is examining President Trump's apparent efforts to oust Attorney General Jeff Sessions last summer, reports the Washington Post.
Kushner's business got loans after White House meetings: Report
All In with Chris Hayes 2/28/18
The company of a private equity billionaire - who met on multiple occasions with Jared Kushner at the White House - lent millions to Jared Kushner's family real estate firm, reports the New York Times.
Loans to Kushner business followed meetings at White House: NYT
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/28/18
Jesse Drucker, business and taxes reporter for The New York Times, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that companies loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner family business after meeting with Kushner at the White House.
'Javanka' faction falling apart as Hope Hicks, others quit W.H.
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/28/18
Rachel Maddow reports on the resignation of White House communications director Hope Hicks, her legal context in the Trump Russia scandal, her political context as an ally of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the White House, and her personal context for Donald Trump.
Mueller queries getting at heart of Russia collusion question
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/28/18
Carol Lee, national political reporter for NBC News, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that special counsel Robert Mueller is asking interviewees whether Donald Trump knew about hacked DNC e-mails before they were released.
Rachel Maddow points out that with the retirement of Rep. Rick Nolan, there will be only one remaining "Watergate baby," legislators voted in as part of a backlash in the wake of the Watergate scandal, left in Congress.
Nixon scandal produced electoral windfall for Democrats
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/28/18
Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, talks with Rachel Maddow about the historical parallels for the criminal prosecution of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and the resignation of his close adviser Hope Hicks.
Top DoJ officials dining together seen as message to Trump
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/28/18
Rachel Maddow shares a photo of Attorney General Jeff Sessions having dinner with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Solicitor General Noel Francisco, a conspicuous display seen as a message for Donald Trump who has directed his ire at Sessions again on Twitter.
Lawrence: Hope Hicks made Sean Spicer look competent
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 2/28/18
The W.H. Communications Director says she will resign one day after revealing to the House Intel Cmte. she tells "white lies" for Trump. Lawrence O'Donnell examines Hicks' record of bad decision-making in a job that requires her to make the White House look good.
Earnest on top Trump aide departure: Hope Hicks 'loyal to a fault'
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 2/28/18
Hope Hicks' resigned as WH Communications Director only one day after her controversial testimony to the House Intel Cmte, which Barbara McQuade says seems like a "perfect coincidence." Josh Earnest and Eugene Robinson also join Lawrence O'Donnell.
Student protests have Democrats pushing Trump to act on guns
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 2/28/18
In tonight's Rewrite, Lawrence O'Donnell explains how Democrats are using the political momentum from the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed on Valentine's Day to convince the president to support their gun legislation.
Trump White House hammered by bad headlines as Hicks resigns
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 3/1/18
The last day of February saw a barrage of negative news - on the Mueller probe, on Jared Kusher, Atty. General Sessions, & more - for the Trump White House as its Communications Director, longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, announced she is resigning.
Mueller probing when Trump learned about DNC email hack
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 3/1/18
NBC News broke the exclusive report that Robert Mueller's team is working to learn whether Trump knew about the DNC email hacks before the public and is probing the relationship between Trump confidant Roger Stone & Wikileaks boss Julian Assange.
Did Kushner use White House to benefit his family business?
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 3/1/18
The New York Times is reporting that Jared Kushner's family business got over $500 million in loans from companies after officials from those companies visited the White House. Those companies deny any quid-pro-quo occurred.
Trump, who's bragged about crowd sizes, ratings, newspaper articles, media attention, and much more, said at a White House event, 'I'm not into popularity.'
“Billy Graham didn’t eschew politics. In fact, he enjoyed politics very much,” Martin said. “Oh, he professed neutrality, but he once told reporters they could probably figure out how he voted and they all laughed,” he added, alluding to Graham’s conservative views.
Graham once embraced politics. In a 1971 Charlotte Observer photograph, he is pictured with Nixon on “Billy Graham Day” in North Carolina’s Queen City. The duo are smiling and waving to the crowd out of the sunroof of Nixon’s presidential limousine.
But it was that relationship that drove Graham to become less — publicly, at least — politically active.
“Graham got burned by Nixon,” Martin said. “Nixon used him, just like he used everyone else. Some of Nixon’s aides have admitted as much to me. … On some of Nixon’s tapes, you can hear him say essentially, ‘Here’s how we have used Billy Graham.’”
On Tuesday, White House communications director Hope Hicks did what for the Trump White House was extraordinary, if not unprecedented: She admitted to lawmakers that working for President Trump required her to lie.
On Wednesday, she announced her resignation.
There was no connection made between those two events by Hicks or by the president in announcing her departure, which was characterized as entirely voluntary and under consideration for some time. Yet, whether the two events were connected or not, Hicks had done something that is incompatible with serving in this administration: She told the truth about the lies.
In a move formalizing more than a year of hardline anti-immigration rhetoric from the White House, the agency responsible for overseeing both green cards and citizenship has wiped a key line framing the United States as a “nation of immigrants” from its mission statement.
In a letter sent Thursday, Lee Francis Cissna, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), told employees that the statement had been altered to “guide us in the years ahead.”
Despite budget cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary Ben Carson allocates nearly $200,000 to new furniture for his office.
Alex Jones's Deep State Enemy: "Jordan Keppler" - The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper
Published on Feb 28, 2018 by Comedy Central
As Alex Jones faces a potential ban from YouTube for his hard-hitting reporting, a new threat named "Jordan Keppler" joins the establishment's attack on the Infowars host.
Seth takes a closer look at the high-level Trump White House officials who have come under scrutiny and the president's meeting with lawmakers to address gun violence.
So its always bugged the hell out of me why a kettle makes most noise before it boils, then becomes almost silent when it actually boils. However when you get a high speed camera on it, it becomes very obvious very quickly! The noise is actually made by the collapse of steam bubbles in colder water. At about 70 C you have the most number of these bubbles collapsing. As the temperature of the water gets higher, the steam in the bubbles doesnt condense as well, meaning the bubbles have a longer lifetime. Finally when the water boils, the bubbles dont collapse at all, and it becomes almost silent!
Cool stuff water does under vacuum:
High speed camera reveals water-vacuum shockwave!
Published on Jan 29, 2017 by Thunderf00t So I've been putting the new high speed camera through its paces.... For a long time I've enjoyed tormenting students with water in a vacuum tube. It makes a chinking sound... but why? Now for me.... you gotta bear in mind Ive been working with vacuums for over 20 years..... to me this is like watching the sun rise and seeing the earth spinning. But its always fascinating to see people reaction to this. Maybe I should do a react video on it! :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY8pucNaaH0 [with comments]
( https://youtu.be/wZSwT952-MI ) In 1932, Helen Keller wrote, "I am tempted to think that the perplexed businessman might discover a possible solution [to] his troubles if he would just spend a few days in his wife's kitchen. Let us see what would happen if he did." In the article, originally published in The Atlantic, Keller ponders how the economics of industrialization helped advance women’s rights. It is excerpted and animated here. https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/554258/helen-keller/
Trump attacks Sessions over inquiry into alleged FBI surveillance abuses in Russia probe “Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-attacks-sessions-over-russian-probe-n851961
Trump vs. Jeff Sessions If he really wants FBI answers, why not declassify everything? Editorial Anyone who serves in a presidential cabinet understands that the job comes with people trying to undermine you. But in the Trump Administration the undermining too often seems to come from the President. That’s the pickle Jeff Sessions finds himself in. On Wednesday morning President Trump used Twitter to call his Attorney General “DISGRACEFUL!” for asking the Justice Department’s inspector general to look into possible eavesdropping abuse by the FBI. Mr. Trump went on a similar tear in July, when he accused Mr. Sessions of being “VERY weak” in handling the Hillary Clinton investigations. Mr. Trump prides himself on his business acumen, but we don’t know a CEO who thinks the way to get the best out of subordinates is to humiliate them in public. Mr. Sessions is Attorney General because Mr. Trump chose him. If Mr. Trump’s purpose is to goad Mr. Sessions into resigning, he ought to know that he’s unlikely to get a replacement through the Senate. That means the department would be run by someone Mr. Trump might like even less, e.g., Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. In his tweet the President also derided Inspector General Michael Horowitz as “an Obama guy.” It’s true his appointment dates to 2012, but the IG was also appointed to the federal sentencing commission by George W. Bush. In 2012 Mr. Horowitz released a scathing report on the Obama Justice Department’s handling of “Fast and Furious,” a botched operation that put weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Mr. Trump might also recall that when the FBI said it couldn’t find 50,000 texts between FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Mr. Horowitz announced that his office had recovered them. Unlike in July, this time Mr. Sessions responded publicly that Justice had “initiated the appropriate process” to investigate the FBI issues. He added that as long as he is AG, he’d continue to discharge his duties “with integrity and honor” and the department would do its work “in a fair and impartial manner.” Mr. Trump has a point about investigations dragging on without conclusions. But a big reason is that key government institutions, including the FBI and Justice, have stonewalled efforts to get answers. Yet for some reason he refuses to use his presidential power to declassify the FISA court and FBI documents so the public can judge. Instead of whining about Mr. Sessions, Mr. Trump could order him to appoint someone at Justice with the sole responsibility of making public the documents that would give the American people the answers they deserve. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-vs-jeff-sessions-1519864508
Mueller is reportedly scrutinizing Trump's efforts last July to force Jeff Sessions out of office Special counsel Robert Mueller is said to be investigating President Donald Trump's heated attacks last summer on Attorney General Jeff Sessions. At the time, Trump asked why the "beleaguered" attorney general wasn't "looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations." Sessions' recusal from the Russia investigation is a key point of frustration for Trump, who once reportedly asked why he couldn't order "my guys" at the "Trump Justice Department" to do his bidding. http://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-examines-whether-trump-tried-firing-jeff-sessions-russia-probe-2018-2
Russian Escort Nastya Rybka Offers to Reveal Trump-Russia Links in Exchange for Jail Release - made video with Oleg Deripaska - Manafort client/funder - and one of the Russian government’s most influential officials, the deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko http://www.newsweek.com/nastya-rybka-escort-trump-russia-823374
Georgia teens take on NRA seconds after shooting at their school Students at Dalton High School in Georgia were quick to call out the NRA and its enablers after another incident of gun violence. https://shareblue.com/dalton-high-school-georgia-teens-shooting/
Hundreds gather at church for blessing ceremony featuring AR-15s - AP NEWFOUNDLAND, Pa. -- Hundreds of crown-wearing worshipers clutching AR-15 rifles drank holy wine and exchanged or renewed wedding vows in a commitment ceremony at a Pennsylvania church on Wednesday, prompting a nearby school to cancel classes. With state police and a smattering of protesters standing watch outside the church, brides clad in white and grooms in dark suits brought dozens of unloaded AR-15s into World Peace and Unification Sanctuary for a religious event that doubled as an advertisement for the Second Amendment. World Peace and Unification Sanctuary in Newfoundland believes the AR-15 symbolizes the "rod of iron" in the biblical book of Revelation. The Rev. Sean Moon, who leads the church, prayed for "a kingdom of peace police and peace militia where the citizens, through the right given to them by almighty God to keep and bear arms, will be able to protect one another and protect human flourishing." Moon is the son of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah who founded the Unification Church, which critics regard as a cult. The younger Moon's congregation is a breakaway faction of the Unification Church, which had distanced itself from Wednesday's event. An attendant checked each weapon at the door to make sure it was unloaded and secured with a zip tie, and the elaborate commitment ceremony went off without a hitch. Tim Elder, Unification Sanctuary's director of world missions, told worshippers the ceremony was meant to be a blessing of couples, not "inanimate objects," calling the AR-15 a "religious accoutrement." The church has held at least one other ceremony featuring assault-style rifles. But Wednesday's event, coming on the heels of the high school massacre in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17, rubbed emotions raw. Authorities say the shooting suspect, Nikolas Cruz, used an AR-15 in the attack. "It's scaring people in the community," one protester told a church member. "Are you aware of that?" The ceremony prompted Wallenpaupack Area School District to move students at an elementary school down the street to other campuses. Lisa Desiena, from Scranton, protested outside the church with a sign that called the group an "armed religious cult." She said she owns a gun, but "I don't need a freaking assault weapon to defend myself. Only thing they're good for is killing. Period. That's all that weapon is good for, mass killing. And you want to bless it? Shame on you." But 41-year-old Sreymom Ouk -- who attended the ceremony with her husband, Sort Ouk, and came with their AR-15 -- said the weapon is useful for defending her family against "sickos and evil psychopaths." "People have the right to bear arms, and in God's kingdom, you have to protect that," she said. "You have to protect against evil." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hundreds-of-worshipers-gather-at-church-hosting-ceremony-featuring-ar-15s/ original http://beatricedailysun.com/now/today/couples-clutch-ar--rifles-as-they-renew-wedding-vows/article_c8ca55a0-0b90-5b2d-8d32-73b3b03df9c5.html related: https://www.apnews.com/eec14fcc792d44d784eaf0f55adea740/Pennsylvania-church-to-bless-couples-toting-AR-15-rifles http://citizensvoice.com/news/wayne-county-church-to-bless-ar-15s-host-pro-guns-dinner-1.2304864 http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/wallenpaupack-students-will-relocate-during-gun-blessing-at-nearby-church-1.2305991 http://citizensvoice.com/news/wallenpaupack-students-will-relocate-during-gun-ceremony-at-nearby-church-1.2306003 https://www.apnews.com/fedec47e650a4e988159e58f9432e842/School-to-close-for-church-ceremony-featuring-AR-15-rifles http://www.philly.com/philly/education/church-blesses-ar-15-rifles-school-students-removed-wallenpaupack-district-newfoundland-pa-20180226.html
The moon's formation may have been far more violent than we thought A new study challenges the idea that the moon was formed by a rogue planetary body slamming into the Earth and knocking off a disc. Instead, the study's authors think the moon may have emerged from an even more violent collision that would have created a rapidly spinning doughnut of molten, vaporized rock and liquid called a synestia. As the synestia cooled, the moon may have emerged from its outer regions before the inner part cooled and became Earth. This theory helps answer some lingering questions about how the moon formed. http://www.businessinsider.com/moon-formation-giant-impact-earth-synestia-2018-2
Did Dark Matter Make The Early Universe Chill Out? Scientists have probed a period of the universe's early history that no one has been able to explore before — and they got a surprise: It was far colder in the young universe, before the first stars blinked on, than astronomers previously thought. What's more, that cosmic chill may have come from previously unknown interactions between normal matter and mysterious, so-called dark matter, according to two new reports in the journal Nature. If so, it's the first time scientists have observed any effect of dark matter other than its gravitational pull. All of this comes from an experiment that detected a faint radio signal from primordial hydrogen gas in the young universe, just 180 million years after the Big Bang. "What we've seen is the evidence of the first hydrogen at a point where the stars are just beginning, the very early stars," says Alan Rogers, a researcher at MIT's Haystack Observatory. In its first days, the universe was dark and filled with hydrogen. Some of that gas then coalesced into stars that began to turn on and light up, affecting the surrounding hydrogen gas and producing a telltale signature. To detect this extremely small signal from the universe's younger days, Rogers and his colleagues used an instrument with a radio antenna located in a remote, "radio quiet" desert in Western Australia, far from any cities, radio or TV stations, or cell phone networks. [...] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/28/588833582/did-dark-matter-make-the-early-universe-chill-out studies: http://www.nature.com/articles/nature25791 http://www.nature.com/articles/nature25792
Scientists found atoms that contain remnants of the dawn of the universe Cosmic records of the earliest days of the universe, 13.8 billion years ago, are starting to accumulate. Soon, we may have all the clues we need to piece together the events that transformed hydrogen and cosmic energy to the blooming universe astronomers study today. Today (Feb. 28), scientists announced the discovery of some of the earliest traces of radiation left over from the Big Bang ever recorded. Using highly sensitive instruments, they found hydrogen atoms that had captured radiation from the formation of the universe’s very first stars. These stars formed about 180 million years after the massive event that transformed the universe from a mass of hydrogen and energy into organized galaxies. Atoms can have different energy levels. At a baseline level, the atom’s nucleus (composed of protons and neutrons) holds onto its electrons at a particular distance. When atoms are exposed to more energy, through higher temperatures or radiation, their electrons may be pulled farther away from the nucleus. This state is called an excited state. Usually, atoms in an excited state will intermittently fluctuate back down to their ground state. When the first stars formed, they gave off ultraviolet energy at precisely the right amount to bring some hydrogen atoms in the universe at the time into an excited state. In this excited state, these atoms absorbed some of the background radiation left over from the Big Bang. For the billions of years since then, these hydrogen atoms have been floating around space, appearing nondescript among all the newer gases and galaxies. Scientists have long thought they could find these ancient hydrogen atoms if they listened for a precise radio frequency in the universe. This exact frequency is the energy the atoms give off when their electrons jump between their ground state and a specific excited state. But space is a noisy place. Cosmic radiation from other stars and galaxies makes picking out a particular signal from a particular atom similar to hearing a single heartbeat at a music festival. So lead researcher Judd Bowman at Arizona State University and his team took a highly sensitive antenna-and-receiver out to a remote Australian desert to find the quietest place on Earth to see if they could identify the ancient-hydrogen frequency. Their findings, which were published in the journal Nature, were the result of 12 years of work. “We now know there were stars about 180 million years [after the Big Bang],” says Bowman. But, he adds, they also discovered “something mysterious happening” was happening in the universe at that time. Although the hydrogen atoms’ signal turned up about where theoretical models had predicted it would, it was twice as loud as expected. There are two working explanations for this surprise discovery: Either hydrogen at this point after the Big Bang was much colder than hypothetical calculations have led scientists to believe, or the background radiation temperature was hotter. In a separate paper published simultaneously in Nature, Rennan Barkana, an astrophysicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, argues that since current known astrophysical phenomena are not likely to account for either of these temperature discrepancies, the best explanation is that dark matter interacted with the atoms to cool them down. At the moment, scientists don’t know a lot about dark matter. “It has mass—that’s how we infer that it’s there,” says Bowman. “But it doesn’t seem to interact with light,” like the rest of all matter that’s been studied on Earth. This research could provide another means to study this elusive material, in addition to the way that the universe itself formed. This discovery is the kind of major progress in astronomy and physics that many scientists will want to see replicated before it’s accepted as true. “Although the signal in an absolute sense is not particularly small, there is contamination from other astronomical sources that is roughly 10,000 times brighter than the signal,” says Steven Furlanetto, an astrophysicist at the University of California-Los Angeles who is unaffiliated with either study. ‘There’s no doubt that confirmations from some of the other telescopes seeking this signal are necessary.” Bowman and other astronomers have plans to try to replicate these results using larger radio telescopes in South Africa, hopefully getting even clearer signals from these ancient hydrogen atoms. https://qz.com/1217512/scientists-found-atoms-with-evidence-of-the-formation-of-the-universe/
In a planned highway widening project, 94 percent of displaced residents live in communities mostly consisting of Black and Brown people
A "Road Ends" sign is displayed at the end of Jury Street in the Highland Terrace neighborhood in Charleston, South Carolina, on August 14, 2021. (Nora Williams for The Washington Post)
By Darryl Fears and John Muyskens Updated Sept. 8 at 8:00 a.m.Originally published Sept. 8, 2021
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Weary-eyed and feeling all of her 85 years, Hattie Anderson doesn’t want to fight anymore.
For most of her life, she held on to the large plot of land that she and her late husband Samuel pinched pennies to buy — even after the state ran a freeway through their mostly Black community, after the city used eminent domain to take nearly nine acres for a sewage drain, and after the state added a beltway. But now, as state officials plan another major road expansion, Anderson is offering to sell them her land and leave.
“If they don’t take my house,” she said, “I’m going to be just in a little corner, in a little hole by myself. Where I am, it’s like a dead end.”
The dismantling of Black communities for state and federal highways is not just a thing of the past. It’s happening now a few miles north of Charleston with the proposed West I-526 Lowcountry Corridor, at a time when President Biden and his transportation secretary have vowed to stop it.
South Carolina is proposing to sweep aside dozens of homes, and potentially hundreds of people, to widen a freeway interchange choked with traffic in this booming coastal region. The $3 billion project is expected to begin about two years after the plan becomes final.
This 1957 aerial photograph shows the neighborhoods of Liberty Park and Highland Terrace in North Charleston prior to the construction of a freeway in 1969. At the time of the freeway construction, these neighborhoods were majority-Black, according to residents and state officials.
In the decades since this photo was taken, two freeways cutting through the neighborhoods have displaced dozens of buildings – homes, churches, businesses. “Low-income and minority residents felt they were not properly informed or assisted with relocation,” the state wrote in a community impact assessment.
Today, Highland Terrace is separated from Liberty Park by lanes of traffic, sandwiched between the massive freeway interchange and the nearby airport.
History is about to repeat itself: South Carolina’s preferred plan to expand the freeway interchange would result in the demolition or relocation of nearly 100 homes and businesses. -----
If Charleston County has its way, the roadbuilding and housing destruction would not stop in North Charleston. In late August, officials unveiled a separate, $720 million plan for an expressway to begin near the expanded beltway and extend south to rural Johns Island and suburban James Island. Both places contain historic African American enclaves, where formerly enslaved people spread out from a nearby plantation in the 1870s.
Under the state’s preferred proposal for the interchange upgrade, 94 percent of people and structures that would be displaced live in environmental justice communities mostly composed of Black and Brown residents.
They are the kinds of places that Biden vowed to protect as he campaigned for office. After his victory, he placed environmental justice advocates in key posts at the White House.
The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill awaiting a House vote includes a provision that seeks to mend communities of color that were broken apart by American freeways built over the last four decades. Democrats called for $20 billion to retrofit and possibly remove highways that became barriers in underprivileged communities, while adding parks and walkway bridges to beautify these areas and make them safer for pedestrians and cyclists to navigate.
But as Biden tries to right past wrongs, Black residents in North Charleston dread a plan that threatens them now. They live in the apartments, trailers, starter homes and houses that South Carolina transportation officials framed in red for demolition.
Anderson is haunted by the memory of what happened to her robust community when the highway was first built and expanded when she was a young woman in her 30s.
“It kind of split Liberty Park and Highland Terrace up,” she said.
Black communities: ‘The point of least resistance’
Interstate-26 crawled up to Anderson’s doorstep from Charleston, where it originated in South Carolina.
The project launched immediately after Congress passed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, paving the way for major roads that scarred and wiped out communities of color from Atlanta to Oakland, “often under the guise of urban renewal,” Deborah Archer wrote in an article .. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3539889 , “White Men’s Roads Through Black Men’s Homes: Advancing Racial Equity Through Highway Reconstruction.”
“Black communities were impacted because they were Black communities,” said Archer, a clinical law professor at New York University, during a phone interview. “They were impacted to remove Black people. They were impacted because people wanted to lock in segregation.”
Kevin Kruse, a Princeton University history professor, recalled thatAtlanta’s mayor openly said Interstate-20 was designed to divide White and Black communities. And it wasn’t just in the South. Interstate-579 cut off Pittsburgh’s Hill District of Black businesses and residents from the city’s downtown, while expressways also eviscerated Black communities in St. Paul and Detroit.
The practice of locating freeways, oil and gas refineries, transportation hubs, landfills, power plants, concrete batch operations and freeways in non-White areas is so common that they have a name: sacrifice communities.
IMAGE - A freeway expansion through majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods Sources: 2020 decennial census, Open Street Map contributors
Robert D. Bullard, a distinguished professor at Texas Southern University and the author of the 2004 book, “Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity,” said residents living near freeways pay a heavy price. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 20,000 Americans die prematurely each year from motor vehicle pollution.
Anderson began noticing strange things when Interstate-26 arrived in 1969, and again when Interstate-526 joined it two decades later.
“Animals came from out of nowhere,” she said. “I saw foxes. Raccoons would lift bricks off the top of trash cans.”
To this day, she said, “I put lime around here for the snakes.” Over time, noise from thousands of cars and trucks intruded too. “You can hear them.”
Anderson is not surprised that Liberty Park will be hard hit again. Black residents are “the point of least resistance,” she said.
‘A history of negative impacts’
Ruthmae Whitney looks out at the cars passing-by on Interstate 26. (Nora Williams for The Washington Post)
Another reoccurring "Road Ends" sign is displayed in the Highland Terrace neighborhood. (Nora Williams for The Washington Post)
Ruthmae Whitney opened her front door one August day and the sound of heavy traffic poured into her house.
Truck engines growled. Hot rods shrieked as they raced past the speed limit. Even when the door is closed, the muffled drone of more than 100,000 vehicles per day is a never-ending whoosh.
At rush hour, it often becomes a horn-honking grind. “I can sit on my porch and see how congested it is on the highway,” Whitney said.
She has lived in Highland Terrace — about a mile from Hattie Anderson — for about 52 years, around the time Interstate-26 arrived. It forced Whitney, now 86, and her mother to evacuate their first house on Jury Lane.
“Here you just got settled, and here comes the highway taking your place,” she said.
The addition of the beltway two decades later brought the road within a few feet of her current home on Good Street. The proposed expansion spared that house but, she said, it would eliminate the house next door, take a chunk of her property and “put me very close to that highway.
“I’ll be hearing all that traffic noise even more,” Whitney said. Story continues below advertisement
On the telephone at her office in Columbia, the state capital, Joy Riley was apologetic. Riley, the project manager for the expansion, acknowledged that Black residents were wronged when the interstates were originally built.
“We had a history there going in of negatively impacting these communities,” Riley said, “and so the challenging part was trying to go in and figure out how can we address the traffic issues but also look at what’s been done in the past and try to do something different now.”
Riley was adamant that the project has to be done. The interchange that joins Interstate-26 and 526 is undersized in a county where the population has doubled since 1960 to more than 411,000. “The interchange just can’t handle the number of vehicles that come through there daily. You’re just stuck. You can’t get out.”
The department’s preferred alternative would acquire 33 single family homes, four apartment buildings with at least 35 units, 11 mobile homes and eight duplexes. Two community centers and at least one church will be leveled. The plan doesn’t say how many people would be forced out of those buildings.
Another IMAGE more complete inside. Sources: South Carolina Department of Transportation, Mapbox satellite imagery
From the moment the county and state proposed two freeway projects in 2010 and 2019, environmental groups such as the Low Country Alliance for Model Communities and the Coastal Conservation League have fought them.
First, Charleston County sought to build an expressway with bridges between Charleston International Airport and Johns Island and James Island, where many emancipated slaves resettled in the 1800s. Later, the state said it would have to infringe on Black communities again to widen the interstate.
The activists argue that South Carolina is approaching 21st Century traffic congestion in North Charleston with a mid-20th Century solution.
“While other cities are taking down expressways, Charleston’s still trying to build more expressways while also fixing the mistakes they made in the past by widening the current one,” said Jason Crowley, senior program director for communities and transportation for the conservation league. “It doesn’t make sense.”
As they battled the state project in North Charleston, advocates called on officials to include measures to help residents, which planners ultimately accepted.
The state is now planning to build affordable housing, mostly apartments and a few single family homes — about 100 units. It will offer financial counseling for first time home buyers and anyone seeking a home away from the affected area.
In addition, the state is promising to enhance the area with parks and better lighting, improve access to public transportation and construct a walkway bridge to help pedestrians navigate streets amputated by the freeway.
Together the improvements cost about $100 million, Riley said.
Despite the cosmetic makeover, the plan’s fine print reveals that people who choose to stay will face potential harm: “The residents of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the I-526 and I-26 interchange are likely to experience greater impacts to the quality of the air they breathe than residents living in areas further removed from high traffic interchanges.”
It was the clean open space that attracted Whitney to Highland Terrace. She moved there from Charleston in 1957 because houses had big yards and her mother loved to garden.
They were near Liberty Hill, another community established by formerly enslaved people. Many Black residents were Gullah, who speak an English Creole directly linked to West Africa.
“These people were basically among the least assimilated Black people in the United States because of their isolation on the Sea Islands,” said Damon Fordham, an adjunct history professor at The Citadel military college in Charleston. They were brought over to grow rice and “they retained the African-ness of their speech.”
Damon Fordham, a local historian, stands in front of an old gas station that used to be at the entrance of the Highland Terrace neighborhood. (Nora Williams for The Washington Post)
As White residents left the area, Black people created a tightknit community. They established Club Zanzibar and Club Jamaica, highbrow gathering halls that Fordham wasn’t even aware of when he was a Black kid growing up in nearby Mount Pleasant.
Some women were called “Chilly Bear Ladies” because they filled Dixie cups with crushed ice and flavored it with fruit juices or Kool-Aid. They sold the low budget Popsicles to children for dimes.
The freeways tore through near the end of the civil rights movement, dividing neighborhoods, crushing homes and forcing out occupants like Whitney. “It was bad, sad,” she said. “Nobody wants to lose friends that they’ve been around for some time.”
Convinced the state will keep coming back until nothing is left of Highland Terrace, Liberty Park, Ferndale and Russelldale, Whitney wants to leave.
“What I think is because they know that Blacks can’t really afford lawyers to fight, they have to go with moving us,” she said. With housing prices rising sharply in White neighborhoods around her, Whitney is at the mercy of appraisers who often undervalue African American homes.
Houses in Whitney’s area received the lowest appraisals of all on the transportation department’s maps, valued as low as $31,000.
“What I’m hoping, since they say they’re going through with this highway, is that they would give us a fair price and consider the fact that we didn’t ask to move and we cannot buy a house and build a house for the price of what we built this for,” she said.
DeAndre Gadsden, who lives across the street from Whitney, said the house he purchased four years ago for $100,000 is now worth twice that. But the state, which has yet to offer an appraisal, will have the final say.
However, state officials did offer an appraisal of Hattie Anderson’s five-acre property in Liberty Park — and she didn’t like what she saw.
‘A textbook case of highway robbery’
Samuel Anderson was a believer in owning land and building wealth.
He bought a plot in Liberty Park in 1944. When Hattie married him years later, she supported him by saving. “At first I started with pennies and then I graduated to dimes. When I got to quarters I was big time.”
In time, they owned nearly 13 acres.
But the state and the city of North Charleston immediately started to chip away at their property and its worth. The interstate uprooted their neighbors and the city forced them to accept $43,000 for more than eight acres of land for the sewer project.
With a big chunk of land gone, the Andersons were hemmed in by roads and a creek widened for sewage. The family stopped using the front of their home because a small bridge that led to their driveway could no longer straddle the creek.
Thirty years later, they still use a dirt path in the backyard to come and go.
“What you have described is a textbook case of highway robbery,” said Bullard, the author and Texas Southern University professor.
The state needs a plot like hers to replace a community center the road expansion would tear down. They said her 5.7 acres with a 2,000 square foot house are worth $712,000.
“It is ridiculously low for the almost six acres she has,” said Anderson’s daughter, Cynthia. “She’s very upset. We have to calm her down because she’s says that’s not right, they’re taking my land and I’ve been here all this time.”
Riley said the state is planning a second appraisal of Anderson’s property because “we’re kind of in a weird market right now,” given that housing cost have skyrocketed in the last year-and-a-half.
The offer reminded Hattie Anderson of her husband’s 1980 legal fight against the city’s bid to take the family’s property through eminent domain for what she called “a ditch.”
At a court hearing, she recalled, a judge said, “We’re not going to make you any richer or any poorer” when he ruled in the city’s favor.
“We were upset,” Anderson said. “But we got to a place where we accepted the things we couldn’t change.”
About this story
The 1957 aerial photograph of North Charleston is courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
People of color include all those identifying as a race and ethnicity other than White alone and non-Hispanic.
Chris Dixon contributed to this report from Charleston. Additional data work by Ted Mellnik.