Day: August 26, 2022

‘Star Trek’ Actress Nichelle Nichols’ Ashes Headed for Solar Orbit

The late actress Nichelle Nichols, best known as Lieutenant Uhura on “Star Trek,” will become the latest member of the 1960s television series to be memorialized by having some of her earthly remains flown into space.

Nichols, who died July 30 at age 89, is credited with helping shatter racial stereotypes and redefining Hollywood roles for Black actors at the height of the U.S. Civil Rights movement, as one of the first Black women to portray an empowered character on network television.

Now she has been added to the posthumous passenger manifest of a real-life rocket ship due to carry a collection of vials containing cremated ashes and DNA samples from dozens of departed space enthusiasts on a final, and eternal, voyage around the sun, according to organizers of the tribute.

A date for the launch has not yet been set.

Other “Star Trek” cast members and executives who have had remains launched into space include James Doohan, who played the show’s chief engineer, Scotty, and “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry.

Also joining the launch will be the remains of Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who played nurse Christine Chapel on the series, and the renowned sci-fi visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull, whose work was featured in such films as “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”

The launch is organized by Celestis Inc., a Texas company that has created a unique niche in the burgeoning commercial space sector by offering a measure of cosmic immortality to customers who can afford a dramatic sendoff.

Celestis, which contracts with private rocket ventures, has not publicly divulged the fees and other financial details of its service.

The upcoming memorial flight will be aboard a Vulcan Centaur rocket, still under development by the Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture, United Launch Alliance (ULA).

Plans call for the 200-plus capsules carrying human remains and DNA for what Celestis is calling its “Enterprise Flight” to go inside the upper rocket stage that will fly on into deep space, beyond the gravitational pull of the Earth and moon, and eventually enter a perpetual solar orbit, said Charles Chafer, co-founder and chief executive officer of Celestis.

“It’s a wonderful memorial for her, an eternal one,” Nichols’ son Kyle Johnson told Reuters.

In the 1970s, Nichols was hired by NASA to help recruit more marginalized groups and women to the space agency, where she was influential in attracting such talent as the first woman U.S. astronaut, Sally Ride; the first Black woman astronaut, Mae Jemison; and the first Black NASA chief, Charlie Bolden.

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Experts Worry Digital Footprints Will Incriminate US Patients Seeking Abortions

The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of protections for abortion rights has intensified scrutiny of the personal data that technology firms collect. Apple, Facebook and Google typically comply with legal requests for user data. For women who live in states where most abortions are now illegal, their smartphones and devices could be used against them. Tina Trinh reports.
Videographer: Saqib Ul Islam, Greg Flakus Video editor: Tina Trinh

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Christie’s to Auction Microsoft Co-Founder’s $1B Art Collection

Christie’s announced plans on Thursday to auction the art collection of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which it estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.

The November sale of more than 150 pieces spanning 500 years of art will be “the largest and most exceptional art auction in history,” Christie’s said in a statement.

The works will include La montagne Sainte-Victoire by French painter Paul Cezanne, valued at more than $100 million, the auction house said.

It is holding the auction with the late billionaire’s estate. Christie’s said all proceeds will go to charitable causes, as per the wishes of Allen, who was an avid art collector, innovator and philanthropist.

Allen, who died in 2018 at the age of 65, co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975. Together, they came up with the PC operating system that made a fortune for the U.S. technology giant.

Allen left the company in 1983, due to health problems and a deteriorating relationship with Gates, who remained in charge of Microsoft until 2000.

The auction record for a private collection was set this spring by the U.S. couple Harry and Linda Macklowe, with $922 million fetched in auctions conducted by Sotheby’s.

Other than the work by Cezanne, the Allen collection features a work entitled Small False Start by American painter Jasper Johns, valued at more than $50 million, The New York Times reported.

Christie’s did not detail what else is in the collection, but a traveling exhibit in 2016 gave a glimpse of the richness of the Allen art trove.

It features works by Monet, Manet, Klimt and others.

This year is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever in the art market.

Besides the Macklowe auction, an Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold in May for $195 million — a record for a piece of 20th-century art.

Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti said the Allen auction will be like no other.

“The inspirational figure of Paul Allen, the extraordinary quality and diversity of works, and the dedication of all proceeds to philanthropy, create a unique combination that will make the sale of the Paul G. Allen Collection an event of unprecedented magnitude,” Cerutti said.

“To Paul, art was both analytical and emotional. He believed that art expressed a unique view of reality — combining the artist’s inner state and inner eye — in a way that can inspire us all,” said Jody Allen, the executor of the estate.

“His collection reflects the diversity of his interests, with their own mystique and beauty.”

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California Phasing Out Gas Vehicles in Climate Change Fight 

California set itself on a path Thursday to end the era of gas-powered cars, with air regulators adopting the world’s most stringent rules for transitioning to zero-emission vehicles.

The move by the California Air Resources Board to have all new cars, pickup trucks and SUVs be electric or hydrogen by 2035 is likely to reshape the U.S. auto market, which gets 10% of its sales from the nation’s most populous state.

But such a radical transformation in what people drive will also require at least 15 times more vehicle chargers statewide, a more robust energy grid and vehicles that people of all income levels can afford.

“It’s going to be very hard getting to 100%,” said Daniel Sperling, a board member and founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California-Davis. “You can’t just wave your wand, you can’t just adopt a regulation — people actually have to buy them and use them.”

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom told state regulators two years ago to adopt a ban on gas-powered cars by 2035, one piece of California’s aggressive suite of policies designed to reduce pollution and fight climate change. If the policy works as designed, California would cut emissions from vehicles in half by 2040.

More to come

Other states are expected to follow, further accelerating the production of zero-emissions vehicles.

Washington state and Massachusetts already have said they will follow California’s lead and many more are likely to — New York and Pennsylvania are among 17 states that have adopted some or all of California’s tailpipe emission standards that are stricter than federal rules. The European Parliament in June backed a plan to effectively prohibit the sale of gas and diesel cars in the 27-nation European Union by 2035, and Canada has mandated the sale of zero-emission cars by the same year.

California’s policy doesn’t ban cars that run on gas — after 2035 people can keep their existing cars or buy used ones, and 20% of sales can be plug-in hybrids that run on batteries and gas. Though hydrogen is a fuel option under the new regulations, cars that run on fuel cells have made up less than 1% of car sales in recent years.

The switch from gas will drastically reduce emissions and air pollutants. Transportation is the single largest source of emissions in the state, accounting for about 40% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The air board is working on different regulations for motorcycles and larger trucks.

California envisions powering most of the economy with electricity, not fossil fuels, by 2045. A plan released by the air board earlier this year predicts electricity demand will shoot up by 68%. Today, the state has about 80,000 public chargers. The California Energy Commission predicted that needs to jump to 1.2 million by 2030.

The commission says car charging will account for about 4% of energy by 2030 when use is highest, typically during hot summer evenings. That’s when California sometimes struggles to provide enough energy because the amount of solar power diminishes as the sun goes down. In August 2020, hundreds of thousands of people briefly lost power because of high demand that outstripped supply.

That hasn’t happened since, and to ensure it doesn’t going forward, Newsom, a Democrat, is pushing to keep open the state’s last-remaining nuclear plant beyond its planned closure in 2025. Also, the state may turn to diesel generators or natural gas plants as a backup when the electrical grid is strained.

More than 1 million people drive electric cars in California today. Their charging habits vary, but most people charge their cars in the evening or overnight, said Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University who has studied car charging habits and energy grid needs.

If people’s charging habits stay the same, once 30% to 40% of cars are electric, the state would need to add more energy capacity overnight to meet demand, he said. The regulations adopted Thursday require 35% of vehicle sales to be electric by 2026, up from 16% now.

But if more people charged their cars during the day, that problem would be avoided, he said. Changing to daytime charging is “the biggest bang for the buck you’re going to get,” he said.

Both the state and federal government are spending billions to build more chargers along public roadways, at apartment complexes and elsewhere to give people more charging options.

The oil industry believes California is going too far. It’s the seventh-largest oil-producing state and shouldn’t wrap its entire transportation strategy around a vehicle market powered by electricity, said Tanya DeRivi, vice president for climate policy with the Western States Petroleum Association, an industry group.

“Californians should be able to choose a vehicle technology, including electric vehicles, that best fits their needs based on availability, affordability and personal necessity,” she said.

Some difficulties seen

Many car companies, like Kia, Ford and General Motors, are already on the path to making more electric cars available for sale, but some have warned that factors outside their control like supply chain and materials issues make Californians’ goals challenging.

“Automakers could have significant difficulties meeting this target, given elements outside of the control of the industry,” Kia Corp.’s Laurie Holmes told the air board before its vote.

As the requirements ramp up over time, automakers could be fined up to $20,000 per vehicle sold that falls short of the goal, though they’ll have time to comply if they miss the target in a given year.

The new rules approved by the air board say that the vehicles need to be able to travel 150 miles (241 kilometers) on one charge. Federal and state rebates are also available to people who buy electric cars, and the new rules have incentives for car companies to sell electric cars at a discount to low-income buyers.

But some representatives of business groups and rural areas said they fear electric cars will be too expensive or inconvenient.

“These regulations are a big step backwards for working families and small businesses,” said Gema Gonzalez Macias of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce.

Air board members said they are committed to keeping a close eye on equity provisions in the rules to make sure all California residents have access.

“We will not set Californians up to fail, we will not set up the other states who want to follow this regulation to fail,” said Tania Pacheco-Warner, a member of the board and co-director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute at California State University-Fresno.

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For First Time, Facebook, Twitter Take Down Pro-US Influence Operation

This summer, for the first time, Facebook and Twitter removed a network of fake user accounts promoting pro-Western policy positions to foreign audiences and critical of Russia, China and Iran, according to a new report.

The accounts, which violated the companies’ terms of service, “used deceptive tactics to promote pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and Central Asia” and were likely a series of covert campaigns spanning five years, according to the report from Stanford University and Graphika, a social media analytics firm.

Twitter and Facebook, which shared their data about the accounts with the researchers, haven’t publicly identified what entities or organizations were behind the campaigns, the researchers said. Twitter identified the U.S. and Britain as the campaigns’ “presumptive countries of origin,” and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, identified the U.S. as the country of origin, according to the report.

In recent years, internet firms have shut down online influence operations stemming from authoritarian regimes in China, Russia and Iran. The discovery of a U.S.-based online influence operation using many of the same techniques, such as fake people and fake followers to push a narrative, raises questions about who is behind the effort, its goals and whether the operation is effective.

When asked Thursday by VOA whether the U.S. military had created the fake accounts, Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said officials would need to look at the data provided by Facebook or Twitter. He said that the U.S. military does conduct “military information support operations around the world.”

“Obviously, I’m not going to talk about ongoing operations or particular tactics, techniques and procedures, other than to say that we operate within prescribed policies,” he said.

Linking to media, other sites

The researchers noted that the fake social media accounts often posted links to sham media sites as well as “sources linked to the U.S. military,” such as websites in Central Asia that name U.S. Central Command as their sponsor.

In addition, these inauthentic accounts linked to articles from Voice of America, the federally funded international broadcaster, and its sister organization, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the report said. Sham media sites copied stories from BBC Russia, VOA and other sources.

Several suspended social media accounts were linked to sham media accounts operating in Persian, such as Dariche News, which claimed to be an independent media outlet and had some original content. But, the report added, “many of their articles were explicit reposts from U.S.-funded Persian-language media, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Radio Farda and VOA Farsi.”

USAGM responds

On Thursday, the United States Agency for Global Media, the agency that oversees VOA and RFE/RL, said it didn’t have knowledge of these accounts.

“USAGM maintains only its own official social media accounts and websites, using the highest standards to ensure that official accounts are fact-based, accessible and verifiable,” said Lesley Jackson, a spokesperson, in an email.

USAGM doesn’t work with other U.S. government agencies or other groups to promote news content through fake social media accounts, Jackson confirmed. 

“With its mission to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy, USAGM will always promote the free flow of credible information to those in need and stand against misinformation, disinformation and censorship,” Jackson said.

Tactics

The online influence campaigns’ tactics were similar to those of other such campaigns and included doctoring photos to create fake accounts and using hashtags and petitions to attempt to build support.

One set of accounts in Central Asia focused on Russia’s military activities in the Middle East and Africa, but shifted in February to the war in Ukraine, “presenting the conflict as a threat to people in Central Asia,” the report said.

The accounts linked to a petition, whose authorship was unclear, “calling for the Kazakh government to ban Russian TV channels,” the report said.

The researchers said that the tactics of the inauthentic accounts didn’t really work to generate engagement. Most of the posts and tweets received only a handful of likes or retweets. A majority of the accounts had fewer than 1,000 followers.

Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report. 

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