A legal battle over a 10,600 year old ancient skeleton – called the ‘Spirit Cave Mummy’ – has ended after advanced DNA sequencing found it was related to a Native American tribe.

The revelation has been published in Science as part of a wide ranging international study that genetically analysed the DNA of a series of famous and controversial ancient remains across North and South America including Spirit Cave, the Lovelock skeletons, the Lagoa Santa remains, an Inca mummy, and the oldest remains in Chilean Patagonia. The study also looked at the second oldest human remains from Trail Creek Cave in Alaska – a 9,000 year old milk tooth from a young girl.

Scientists sequenced 15 ancient genomes spanning from Alaska to Patagonia and were able to track the movements of the first humans as they spread across the Americas at “astonishing” speed during the Ice Age, and also how they interacted with each other in the following millennia.

The team of academics not only discovered that the Spirit Cave remains – the world’s oldest natural mummy – was a Native American but they were able to dismiss a longstanding theory that a group called Paleoamericans existed in North America before Native Americans.

The ground-breaking research also discovered clues of a puzzling Australasian genetic signal in the 10,400 year old Lagoa Santa remains from Brazil revealing a previously unknown group of early South Americans – but the Australasian link left no genetic trace in North America. It was described by one of the scientists as ‘extraordinary evidence of an extraordinary chapter in human history’.

Professor Eske Willeslev, who holds positions both at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Copenhagen, and led the study, said: “Spirit Cave and Lagoa Santa were very controversial because they were identified as so-called ‘Paleoamericans’ based on craniometry – it was determined that the shape of their skulls was different to current day Native Americans. Our study proves that Spirit Cave and Lagoa Santa were actually genetically closer to contemporary Native Americans than to any other ancient or contemporary group sequenced to date.”

The Lagoa Santa remains were retrieved by Danish explorer Peter W. Lund in the 19th century and his work led to this ‘Paleoamerican hypothesis’ based on cranial morphology that theorised the famous group of skeletons could not be Native Americans. But this new study disproves that theory and the findings were launched under embargo by Professor Willeslev with representatives from the Brazilian National Museum in Rio on Tuesday, November 6 2018.

He added: “Looking at the bumps and shapes of a head does not help you understand the true genetic ancestry of a population – we have proved that you can have people who look very different but are closely related.”

The scientific and cultural significance of the Spirit Cave remains, which were found in 1940 in a small rocky alcove in the Great Basin Desert, was not properly understood for 50 years. The preserved remains of the man in his forties were initially believed to be between 1,500 and 2000 years old, but during the 1990s new textile and hair testing dated the skeleton at 10,600 years old.

The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, a group of Native Americans based in Nevada near Spirit Cave, claimed cultural affiliation with the skeleton and requested immediate repatriation of the remains under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The request was refused because the ancestry was disputed, the tribe sued the federal government and the lawsuit pitted tribal leaders against anthropologists, who argued the remains provided invaluable insights into North America’s earliest inhabitants and should continue to be displayed in a museum.

The deadlock continued for 20 years until the tribe agreed that Professor Willeslev could carry out genome sequencing on DNA extracted from the Spirit Cave for the first time.

Professor Willeslev said: “I assured the tribe that my group would not do the DNA testing unless they gave permission and it was agreed that if Spirit Cave was genetically a Native American the mummy would be repatriated to the tribe.”

The team painstakingly extracted DNA from the petrus bone from the inside of the skull proving that the skeleton was an ancestor of present day Native Americans. Spirit Cave was returned to the tribe in 2016 and there was a private reburial ceremony earlier this year that Professor Willeslev attended and details have just been released.

The geneticist explained: “What became very clear to me was that this was a deeply emotional and deeply cultural event. The tribe have real feelings for Spirit Cave, which as a European it can be hard to understand but for us it would very much be like burying our mother, father, sister or brother.

“We can all imagine what it would be like if our father or mother was put in an exhibition and they had that same feeling for Spirit Cave. It has been a privilege to work with them.”

The tribe were kept informed throughout the two year project and two members visited the lab in Copenhagen to meet the scientists and they were present when all of the DNA sampling was taken.

A statement from the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, said: “The Tribe has had a lot of experience with members of the scientific community, mostly negative. However, there are a handful of scientists that seemed to understand the Tribe’s perspective and Eske Willerslev was one of them.

“He took the time to acquaint himself with the Tribe, kept us well-informed of the process, and was available to answer our questions. His new study confirms what we have always known from our oral tradition and other evidence – that the man taken from his final resting place in Spirit Cave is our Native American ancestor.”

The genome of the Spirit Cave skeleton has wider significance because it not only settled the legal and cultural dispute between the tribe and the Government, it also helped reveal how ancient humans moved and settled across the Americas. The scientists were able to track the movement of populations from Alaska to as far south as Patagonia. They often separated from each other and took their chances travelling in small pockets of isolated groups.

Dr David Meltzer, from the Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, said: “A striking thing about the analysis of Spirit Cave and Lagoa Santa is their close genetic similarity which implies their ancestral population travelled through the continent at astonishing speed. That’s something we’ve suspected due to the archaeological findings, but it’s fascinating to have it confirmed by the genetics. These findings imply that the first peoples were highly skilled at moving rapidly across an utterly unfamiliar and empty landscape. They had a whole continent to themselves and they were travelling great distances at breath-taking speed.”

The study also revealed surprising traces of Australasian ancestry in ancient South American Native Americans but no Australasian genetic link was found in North American Native Americans.

Dr Victor Moreno-Mayar, from the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen and first author of the study, said: “We discovered the Australasian signal was absent in Native Americans prior to the Spirit Cave and Lagoa Santa population split which means groups carrying this genetic signal were either already present in South America when Native Americans reached the region, or Australasian groups arrived later. That this signal has not been previously documented in North America implies that an earlier group possessing it had disappeared or a later arriving group passed through North America without leaving any genetic trace.”

Dr Peter de Barros Damgaard, from the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, explained why scientists remain puzzled but optimistic about the Australasian ancestry signal in South America. He explained: “If we assume that the migratory route that brought this Australasian ancestry to South America went through North America, either the carriers of the genetic signal came in as a structured population and went straight to South America where they later mixed with new incoming groups, or they entered later. At the moment we cannot resolve which of these might be correct, leaving us facing extraordinary evidence of an extraordinary chapter in human history! But we will solve this puzzle.”

The population history during the millennia that followed initial settlement was far more complex than previously thought. The peopling of the Americas had been simplified as a series of north to south population splits with little to no interaction between groups after their establishment.

The new genomic analysis presented in the study has shown that around 8,000 years ago, Native Americans were on the move again, but this time from Mesoamerica into both North and South America.

Researchers found traces of this movement in the genomes of all present-day indigenous populations in South America for which genomic data is available to date.

Dr Moreno-Mayar added: “The older genomes in our study not only taught us about the first inhabitants in South America, but also served as a baseline for identifying a second stream of genetic ancestry, which arrived from Mesoamerica in recent millennia and that is not evident from the archaeological record. These Mesoamerican peoples mixed with the descendants of the earliest South Americans and gave rise to most contemporary groups in the region.”

Climate change could be responsible for a substantial decline in populations of shorebirds, say researchers from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, following a study published in Science analysing population data over a period of 70 years.

Historically, the rates of nest predation – eggs being stolen from nests by predators – are higher in the tropics, presumably due to higher variability of potential predators.

To counter this, shorebirds such as plovers and sandpipers migrate to the Arctic to lay their eggs as a safe place in which to build their nests and raise their young. Tropical birds, on the other hand, tend to have longer lifespans and longer periods of seasonal reproduction so their populations can generally withstand higher nest predation.

However an international team of researchers, including researchers from the Universities of Bath and Sheffield, have found that rates of daily nest predation in the Arctic have increased threefold in the last 70 years.

Rates of daily nest predation in the North Temperate Zone, which includes Europe, most of Asia and North America, have doubled.

Other studies have shown that over the same period, the survival of adult shorebirds has decreased due to habitat deterioration or hunting.

This “double whammy” of fewer babies hatching and decline in the survival of adults has had a devastating effect on population numbers, with species such as the Spoonbill Sandpiper (Calidris pygmea) becoming critically endangered.

The authors of the study in Science analysed data from 38,191 nests of 111 species in 149 locations across all continents.

The data suggest that the marked increase in nest predation in the Arctic and North Temperate Zone, in contrast to a smaller change in the tropics and Southern hemisphere, is linked to climate change.

The reasons for the increase in nest predation however are still unclear. The authors suggest it could be due to shift in the diet of predators towards eating more eggs instead of other food sources or perhaps change in predator species composition.

For example, lemmings, a key part of the Arctic food web have experienced a crash in numbers due to altered snow cover as a result of increased ambient temperature instability over several decades. With a lack of lemmings at many Arctic locations, predators may be searching for alternative prey in bird nests.

The authors also suggest that changes in vegetation or changes in behaviour or distribution of nest predators such as foxes may also be a factor contributing to the increased predation of shorebird nests.

Professor Tamás Székely, Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, said: “These findings are alarming.

“The Earth is a fragile planet with complex ecosystems, thus changes in predator-prey interactions can lead to cascading effects through the food web with detrimental consequences for many organisms thousands of kilometres away.

“Migration of shorebirds from the Arctic to the tropics is one of the largest movements of biomass in the world. But with increased nest predation, the babies are no longer making this journey with their parents.

“This could be the last nail in the coffin for critically endangered species such as the Spoonbill Sandpiper.”

Professor Robert Freckleton, Head of Department for Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield, said: “What is particularly striking about these results is that it is clear that nest losses to predators have risen really quickly in the Arctic over the past 20 years.

“The precise mechanisms are probably quite complex, but overall it looks like changes in climate are playing a leading role in driving such changes both in the Arctic and at a global scale as well.

“This is particularly threatening for this group of birds as large numbers of species are declining anyway – and many have formerly relied on the Arctic to provide relative safe breeding grounds.”

Vojtch Kubelka, former Erasmus+ PhD student at Bath University during 2015-2016, added: “The Arctic, with recently elevated rates of nest predation, is no longer a safe harbour for breeding birds: on the contrary, the Arctic now represents an extensive ecological trap for migrating shorebirds from a nest predation perspective.”

The study underlines the need for understanding the effects of climate change not only for individuals and populations of specific species, but also for interactions between prey and predators in complex ecosystems.

The link between the two has been talked about for years, but a causal connection had never been proven. For the first time, University of Pennsylvania research based on experimental data connects Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram use to decreased well-being. Psychologist Melissa G. Hunt published her findings in the December Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

Few prior studies have attempted to show that social-media use harms users’ well-being, and those that have either put participants in unrealistic situations or were limited in scope, asking them to completely forego Facebook and relying on self-report data, for example, or conducting the work in a lab in as little time as an hour.

“We set out to do a much more comprehensive, rigorous study that was also more ecologically valid,” says Hunt, associate director of clinical training in Penn’s Psychology Department.

To that end, the research team, which included recent alumni Rachel Marx and Courtney Lipson and Penn senior Jordyn Young, designed their experiment to include the three platforms most popular with a cohort of undergraduates, and then collected objective usage data automatically tracked by iPhones for active apps, not those running the background.

Each of 143 participants completed a survey to determine mood and well-being at the study’s start, plus shared shots of their iPhone battery screens to offer a week’s worth of baseline social-media data. Participants were then randomly assigned to a control group, which had users maintain their typical social-media behavior, or an experimental group that limited time on Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram to 10 minutes per platform per day.

For the next three weeks, participants shared iPhone battery screenshots to give the researchers weekly tallies for each individual. With those data in hand, Hunt then looked at seven outcome measures including fear of missing out, anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

“Here’s the bottom line,” she says. “Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness. These effects are particularly pronounced for folks who were more depressed when they came into the study.”

Hunt stresses that the findings do not suggest that 18- to 22-year-olds should stop using social media altogether. In fact, she built the study as she did to stay away from what she considers an unrealistic goal. The work does, however, speak to the idea that limiting screen time on these apps couldn’t hurt.

“It is a little ironic that reducing your use of social media actually makes you feel less lonely,” she says. But when she digs a little deeper, the findings make sense. “Some of the existing literature on social media suggests there’s an enormous amount of social comparison that happens. When you look at other people’s lives, particularly on Instagram, it’s easy to conclude that everyone else’s life is cooler or better than yours.”

Because this particular work only looked at Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, it’s not clear whether it applies broadly to other social-media platforms. Hunt also hesitates to say that these findings would replicate for other age groups or in different settings. Those are questions she still hopes to answer, including in an upcoming study about the use of dating apps by college students.

Despite those caveats, and although the study didn’t determine the optimal time users should spend on these platforms or the best way to use them, Hunt says the findings do offer two related conclusions it couldn’t hurt any social-media user to follow.

For one, reduce opportunities for social comparison, she says. “When you’re not busy getting sucked into clickbait social media, you’re actually spending more time on things that are more likely to make you feel better about your life.” Secondly, she adds, because these tools are here to stay, it’s incumbent on society to figure out how to use them in a way that limits damaging effects. “In general, I would say, put your phone down and be with the people in your life.”

Unlike many other world leaders, US President Donald Trump will not attend a conference hosted by France’s Emmanuel Macron, the organizers said today.

The Paris Peace Forum coincides with France’s program for the commemoration of the end of World War I taking place this week. Around 70 world leaders are to visit France for the event, including Trump.

But unlike people including Germany’s Angela Merkel, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the US president will not attend the forum, which is touted as a new annual event aiming to “develop solutions for today’s transborder challenges.”

As the opening date was drawing closer, there was a lot of uncertainty about Trump’s participation. But on Thursday chief organizer Justin Vaisse confirmed to AFP that the American leader will not be part of it. Earlier this week Vaisse tried to downplay the importance of Trump’s presence.

The forum was given impetus by Macron as part of his agenda to keep France closely involved in international politics and to promote European integration. Trump, a self-described nationalist who adopted the motto “America first” as the quintessence of his policy, apparently found the event’s goals not to his liking.

Four priests from the underground Catholic Church in China’s Hebei province have been taken into police custody for indoctrination, AsiaNews reported Monday.

The publication wrote Nov. 5 that the priests are being “indoctrinated on the religious policy of the Chinese government … because they refuse to enroll in the Patriotic Association.”

The abducted priests are Fr. Zhang Guilin and Fr. Wang Zhong of the Diocese of Chongli-Xiwanzi, and Fr. Su Guipeng and Fr. Zhao He of the Diocese of Xuanhua.

Fr. Zhao He may be under house arrest, according to some sources.

Reports of the destruction or desecration of Catholic churches and shrines have come from across China, including the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, and Shandong.

The Church in mainland China has been divided for some 60 years between the underground Church, which is persecuted and whose episcopal appointments are frequently not acknowledged by Chinese authorities, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a government-sanctioned organization.

A Sept. 22 agreement between the Holy See and Beijing was intended to normalize the situation of China’s Catholics and unify the underground Church and the Patriotic Association.

The agreement has been roundly criticized by human rights groups and some Church leaders, including Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong.

Zen wrote in a column for the New York Times that the agreement was a step toward the “annihilation” of the Catholic Church in China.

While Pope Francis is “very pastoral,” Zen said he does not think that he properly understands how communist China works. In Pope Francis’ home country of Argentina, the communists worked to defend the poor against government oppression, often alongside Jesuits, he said. This could be why the pope “may have a natural sympathy for Communists,” as he views them to be persecuted.

It is far different, said Zen, in places where communists are the ruling party – like China. When they acquire power, the communists become the persecutors themselves, he said.

While the exact terms of the agreement between China and the Vatican were not released, Zen is not optimistic about the future of the underground church. While Pope Francis could still “veto” the nomination of a state-approved bishop, “how many times can he do that, really?”

“What good is having the last word when China will have all the words before it,” he asked. He also expressed doubt that the approximately 30 bishops of the underground Church will still be permitted to function as bishops if the two Churches are reconciled.

Since the agreement in September, two CPCA bishops were invited to attend the synod on youth. These men are “known to be close to the Chinese government,” and their attendance at the synod is “an insult to the good bishops of China.”

Chinese archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000-year-old bronze pot that contains an alcoholic liquid believed to be wine, CNN says.

The discovery occurred on November 6 in China’s Henan province, west of Shanghai.

Shi Jiazhen, who is head of the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in the province’s city of Luoyang, tells China’s Xinhua news agency that “there are 3.5 liters of the liquid in the color of transparent yellow. It smells like wine.”

The maybe-wine was found as part of an excavation of a Western Han Dynasty-era tomb, along with artifacts made from clay and bronze.

Wine has long played in a role in other important archeological digs.

Shards of pottery dating from the Neolithic era (6000-5800 BCE) marked with remnants of grapes were unearthed in the country of Georgia in 2017. They contain some hints about the origin of winemaking there, nearly a full millennium ahead of when historians had previously believed the practice began.

The pottery had traces of tartaric acid, which is what gives wine its tartness.

Meanwhile, the island nation of Cyprus also holds claim to another historical wine accomplishment: Its Commanderia dessert wine is believed to be the oldest named wine in the world.

Other than the as-yet-unnamed liquid, the other major discovery in the Henan province archeological dig this week was a large bronze lamp in the shape of a goose.

Luoyang is rich with historical significance. Its location at the confluence of the Yellow and Luo rivers makes it an important center for trading. It has been the capital of many dynasties, including the Western Jin, Northern Wei and Later Tang.

The city is home to the Shaolin Temple (sometimes referred to as the Shaolin Monastery), which is famed for its connection to kung fu, and the Longmen Grottoes Buddhist rock carvings, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Research from the University of East Anglia has identified areas of the UK which could rival the Champagne region of France.

Climate and viticulture experts have identified nearly 35,000 hectares of prime viticultural land for new and expanding vineyards – much of it in Kent, Sussex and East Anglia.

Prof Steve Dorling, from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, said: “English and Welsh vineyards are booming, and their wine is winning international acclaim.

“This summer’s heatwave has led to a record grape harvest and a vintage year for English and Welsh wine, prompting great interest in investment and land opportunities.

“But despite a trend of warming grape-growing seasons, this season has been quite unusual in terms of weather. English and Welsh grape yields are generally quite low and variable by international standards, so we wanted to identify the best places to plant vineyards and improve the sector’s resilience to the UK’s often fickle weather.”

The research team, with help from wine producers, used new geographical analysis techniques to assess and grade every 50 x 50 m plot of land in England and Wales for suitability.

Lead author Dr Alistair Nesbitt said: “Interestingly, some of the best areas that we found are where relatively few vineyards currently exist such as in Essex and Suffolk – parts of the country that are drier, warmer and more stable year-to-year than some more established vineyard locations.

“The techniques we used enabled us to identify areas ripe for future vineyard investments, but they also showed that many existing vineyards are not that well located, so there is definitely room for improvement and we hope our model can help boost future productivity.

“Entering into viticulture and wine production in England and Wales isn’t for the faint hearted – the investment required is high and risks are significant.

“But as climate change drives warmer growing season temperatures in England and Wales, this new viticulture suitability model allows, for the first time, an objective and informed rapid assessment of land at local, regional and national scales.”

If you’ve ever taken part in the armchair sport of fantasy football and found yourself at the top of your league’s standings at the end of the season, a new MIT study suggests your performance — however far removed from any actual playing field — was likely based on skill rather than luck.

Those looking for ways to improve their fantasy game will have to look elsewhere: The study doesn’t identify any specific qualities that make one fantasy player more skilled over another. Instead, the researchers found, based on the win/loss records of thousands of fantasy players over multiple seasons, that the game of fantasy football is inherently a contest that rewards skill.

“Some [fantasy] players may know more about statistics, rules of the game, which players are injured, effects of weather, and a host of other factors that make them better at picking players — that’s the skill in fantasy sports,” says Anette “Peko” Hosoi, associate dean of engineering at MIT. “We ask, does that skill have an impact on the outcome of the [fantasy] game? In our analysis, the signal for skill in the data is very clear.”

Other fantasy sports such as baseball, basketball, and hockey also appear to be games of skill — considerably more so than activities based on pure chance, such as coin-flipping. What ultimately do these results mean for the average fantasy player?

“They probably can’t use our study to assemble better sports teams,” says Hosoi, who is also the Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering. “But they can use it to talk better smack when they’re at the top of their standings.”

The team’s findings appear this week in the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Review. Hosoi’s co-authors are first author Daniel Getty, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics; graduate student Hao Li; former graduate student Charles Gao; and Masayuki Yano of the University of Toronto.

A fantasy gamble

Hosoi and her colleagues began looking into the roles of skill and chance in fantasy sports several years ago, when they were approached by FanDuel, the second largest company in the daily fantasy sports industry. FanDuel provides online platforms for more than 6 million registered users, who use the site to create and manage fantasy teams — virtual teams made up of real players of professional sports, which fantasy players can pick and draft to their fantasy team. Players can pit their team against other virtual teams, and whether a team wins or loses depends on how the real players perform in actual games in a given day or week.

In recent years, the question has arisen as to whether fantasy sports are a potential form of online gambling. Under a federal law known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA, online players of games such as poker are prohibited from transmitting across state lines funds won through gambling activities using the internet. The law exempts fantasy sports, stating that the game is not a form of betting or wagering.

However, the UIGEA was not drafted to alter the legality of internet wagering, which is, for the most part, determined by individual states. As fantasy sports — and fantasy football in particular — have grown more popular, with prominent ads on commercial and cable television, a handful of states have questioned the legality of fantasy sports and the companies that enable them.

Gambling, of course, is defined as any money-exchanging activity that depends mostly on chance. Fantasy sports would not be considered a form of gambling if it were proven to be more of a contest of skill.

“That is the question that FanDuel wanted us to investigate: Have they designed the contest such that skill is rewarded? If so, then these contests should be classified as games of skill, and are not gambling,” Hosoi says. “They gave us all of their data, and asked whether we could determine the relative role of skill and luck in the outcomes.”

Tests of skill and chance

The team analyzed daily fantasy competitions played on FanDuel during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, in baseball, basketball, hockey, and football. In their analysis, the researchers followed guidelines laid out originally by economist and “Freakonomics” author Steven Levitt, along with Thomas Miles and Andrew Rosenfield. In a research paper they wrote in 2012, the economists sought to determine whether a game — in this case, poker — was based more on skill than on chance.

They reasoned that if a game were more skill-based, then a player’s performance should be persistent. It might be good or bad, but it would remain relatively constant over multiple rounds.

To test this in the context of fantasy sports, Hosoi’s team looked at the win/loss record of every fantasy player in FanDuel’s dataset, over one season. For each (anonymized) player, the researchers calculated the fraction of wins the player experienced over the first half of the season versus the second half. They then represented each player’s performance over an entire season as a single dot on a graph whose vertical and horizontal axes represented the win fraction for the first and second halves of the season, respectively.

If a given fantasy sport were based more on skill, then a individual player’s win fraction should be approximately the same — be it 90 percent or 10 percent — for the first and second halves of the season. When every player’s performance is plotted on the same graph, it should roughly resemble a line, indicating a prevalence of skill. On the other hand, if the game were one of chance, every player should have around a 50 percent win fraction, which on the graph would look more like a circular cloud.

For every fantasy sport, the researchers found the graph skewed more linear versus circular, indicating games of skill rather than chance.

The researchers tested a second hypothesis proposed by Levitt: If a game is based on chance, then every player should have the same expected outcome, just as flipping a coin has the same probability for landing heads versus tails. To test this idea, the team split the fantasy player population into two groups: those that played a large number of games, versus those who only participated in a few.

“Even when you correct for biases, like people who quit after losing a lot of games in a row, you find there’s a statistically higher win fraction for people who play a lot versus a little, regardless of the [type of] fantasy sport, which is indicative of skill,” Hosoi says.

The last test, again proposed by Levitt, was to see whether a player’s actions had any impact on the game’s outcome. If the answer is yes, then the game must be one of skill.

“So we looked at how the actual playing population on FanDuel performed, versus a random algorithm,” Hosoi says.

The researchers devised an algorithm that created randomly generated fantasy teams from the same pool of players that were available to the FanDuel users. The algorithm was designed to follow the rules of the game and to be relatively smart in how it generated each team.

“We ran hundreds of thousands of games, and looked at the scores of actual fantasy players, versus scores of computer-generated fantasy players,” Hosoi says. “And you see again that the fantasy players beat the computer-generated ones, indicating that there must be some skill involved.”

Sports on a spectrum

To put their findings in perspective, the researchers plotted the results of each fantasy sport on a spectrum of luck versus skill. Along this spectrum, they also included each fantasy sport’s real counterpart, along with other activities, such as coin flipping, based entirely on chance, and cyclocross racing, which hinges almost entirely on skill.

For the most part, success while playing both fantasy sports and real sports skewed more toward skill, with baseball and basketball, both real and virtual, being more skill-based compared to hockey and football.

Hosoi reasons that skill may play a relatively large role in basketball because the sport encompasses more than 80 games in a season.

“That’s a lot of games, and there are a lot of scoring opportunities in each game,” Hosoi says. “If you get a lucky basket, it doesn’t matter too much. Whereas in hockey, there are so few scoring opportunities that if you get a lucky goal it makes a difference, and luck can play a much larger role.”

Hosoi says the team’s results will ultimately be useful in characterizing fantasy sports, both in and out of the legal system.

“This is one piece of evidence [courts] have to weigh,” Hosoi says. “What I can give them is a quantitative analysis of where [fantasy sports] sit on the skill/luck spectrum. It’s mostly skill, but there’s always a little bit of luck.”

By Jose Torres Jr.

The Philippines’ anti-graft court has ordered the arrest of Imelda Marcos, widow of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, after she was found guilty on seven counts of graft.

She was sentenced to a minimum of six years to a maximum of 11 years and a month imprisonment.

Marcos, who was not in court, can post bail while appealing her conviction.

The court ruling could prevent Marcos, who is running for governor in Ilocos Norte province in next year’s mid-term elections, from holding public office.

The former first lady, who is currently a member of Congress, can still run next year but will be disqualified if the court ruling becomes final after her appeal.

The 89-year-old Marcos was found guilty of corruption for using her cabinet position during the rule of her husband to maintain Swiss bank accounts.

She served as minister of Human Settlements, governor of Manila, and as a member of parliament during her husband’s presidency and dictatorship from 1965 to 1986.

The political party Akbayan welcomed the court decision.

“This legal victory is a two-decade struggle by the brave Filipino people. This is a victory against historical revisionism,” said Etta Rosales, chairwoman of the party and a former political detainee.

She said the court decision came at a time when the Marcos family was “desperately trying to revise history and clear their name of the crimes they committed.”

“This is retribution,” said Rosales. “This decision proves that the corrupt Marcos family really have committed crimes against the Filipino people, in order to enrich themselves and their cronies.”

Last year, President Rodrigo Duterte announced that Marcos had offered to return a portion of their so-called ill-gotten wealth, which is estimated between US$5 billion to US$10 billion.

The government has only recovered about US$3.2 billion in the past 30 years.

By Wilawan Watcharasakwet

If elections go ahead as planned next year, military-ruled Thailand will be under a new government by June, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said Thursday.

He vowed that the general election would push through as planned on Feb. 24, nearly five years after the military seized power.

Official results of the election would be announced no later than April 24, followed by a meeting of parliament on May 8 to select the prime minister.

“According to the constitutional regulations, the election commission suggests preparations for the election date that should be on the last Sunday of February, which is Feb. 24,” Wissanu told reporters at Government House in Bangkok.

Incumbent Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha was only four months from mandatory retirement from the army when he seized power at the height of street protests against the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra, on May 22, 2014.

Wissanu said the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), as the junta is formally known, would remain in power until the formation of a new cabinet.

“May 8 is the first meeting date for the national assembly as well as the last day of this cabinet. However, the NCPO will still remain in power until the new cabinet announces its policy in June next year,” Wissanu said.

The military junta has pushed back dates for elections at least four times.

Wissanu’s announcement on political timelines came a month after Prayuth confirmed Bangkok’s plans to hold the election in February during a meeting in Tokyo with Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.

Elections Commission to consider EU request

Meanwhile, a top elections official was quoted saying Thursday that the junta would study a European Union request to send a mission to Thailand consisting of more than 200 people to observe the elections.

“Initially, we’ll stick to what we’ve always done. If they come to observe constructively, comply with related laws and regulations and do not cause problems in the process, there’s no reason to deny their request,” said Ittiporn Boonpracong, president of Thailand’s Election Commission.

He told the Bangkok Post that the commission would start considering the request in two weeks, explaining that election authorities were busy redrawing constituencies.

Uchane Cheangsan, a political science professor at Walailuck University, said Thais have been anxiously awaiting the elections.

“The Thai society wants to vote,” Uchane told BenarNews. “People are tired with Prayuth. Deep down inside, I think people are aware what has happened with the country. They want to have a new government that is not [led by] Prayuth.

After taking power, Prayuth dissolved parliament, detained political leaders and imposed a curfew while promising to bring Thailand back to democracy within 18 months.

During the past four years, Prayuth’s government has returned Thailand to relative economic strength, with gross domestic product (GDP) growing to 4 percent and exports at a seven-year high.

But a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report stated that the junta had repeatedly failed to fulfill pledges made to the U.N. General Assembly to respect human rights and democratic rule.

Instead, it said, Prayuth curtailed people’s rights to free speech and peaceful assembly and orchestrated the 2017 Constitution, “which will entrench unaccountable and abusive military power.”

The military-backed constitution, which was adopted through a national referendum in August 2016, contains provisions that allow the military to add 100 seats to the Senate and appoint all its members, HRW said.

The military controls 143 out of 250 parliamentary seats, reports said. Under the previous junta after the 2006 coup, the military held 67 of 242 seats.

Under Prayuth’s leadership, Thailand also clamped down on dissent, arresting pro-democracy activists and critics, as well as banning large political gatherings and demonstrations.

The junta-backed parliament also passed an array of laws aimed at gagging free speech, rights activists said, in a country that already has Lese-Majeste, a strict anti-royal defamation law that forbids insults to members of the Thai monarchy.

By Pedro Rafael Vilela

In a Tuesday (Nov. 6) interview, Federal Judge Sergio Moro agreed with the opinions expressed by President-Elect Jair Bolsonaro on making gun possession rules flexible and reducing the age of criminal responsibility.

It was the first time Moro granted an interview since Bolsonaro invited him to become justice minister under his administration. The trial judge was asked a number of controversial questions on topics raised by Bolsonaro during his campaign, like loosening up the Disarmament Statute approved in 2003 limiting gun sales and possession in the country.

According to Moro, Bolsonaro’s win in the presidential race was made possible by a caucus that favors gun possession in the household and it would be inconsistent if the president-elect did not work to push it forward. “The issue to be discussed is the way this is to be conducted. I showed concern, arguing that too much flexibility could lead to criminal organizations having more access to guns.”

As for carrying a gun on the streets and in vehicles, Moro noted that the president-elect himself said this should be governed by even stricter rules than possession.

When asked about lowering the age of criminal responsibility—a subject vehemently underscored by Bolsonaro—the future minister of justice mentioned the scope of the measure, but said he agrees with the proposal currently being considered in Congress, which includes the reduction of the criminal age to 16 in cases of serious crimes resulting in death or severe injuries, and rape.

“People under the age of 18 must be protected, as they often lack a full comprehension of the consequences of their acts, but a teenager older than 16 is in condition to understand, for instance, that they must not kill. So treating this crime differently seems reasonable enough to me,” he argued.

Social Movements

In one of the few moments he expressed disagreement with his future leader, Sergio Moro criticized the possible move to qualify social movements as terrorist organizations. The measure, widely endorsed by Bolsonaro during his campaign and even after his victory, aims to classify damage to public and private property during demonstrations as terrorism.

In Moro’s view, no social movement is above punishment. They have to account for possible losses done to third parties, he sustained, but rating social movements as terrorist organizations is not consistent. “There is a law, an order, that must be observed even by members of these movements, but at no point is there the intention of criminalizing, so to speak, social demonstrations or anything of this sort.”

Minorities

Sergio Moro said that minorities cannot be discriminated against. “Everyone has the right to public security. Hate crimes must not be tolerated,” he stated. Moro went on to point out that, if necessary, he would turn to the Federal Police to fight this sort of crime.

“There is no policy to persecute homosexuals and other minorities. Nothing of this kind has been brought to the table or under scrutiny, no discrimination policy has been envisioned. Minorities will be allowed to have their rights enforced freely. All I see is unfounded fear,” he declared.

By Samuel Stolton with Gerardo Fortuna

(EurActiv) — German Manfred Weber was crowned Spitzenkandidat of the EPP, the European Parliament’s largest party, on Thursday (8 November), after he swept to victory in a contest that saw ex-Finnish Prime minister Alexander Stubb win only 20 percent of the votes.

The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, called on Thursday night for Belgrade and Pristina to tone down their aggressive rhetoric, after Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic and his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci exchanged angry statements following a meeting as part of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

The meeting came a day after Kosovo’s government decided to impose a 10 per cent customs tariff on all Serbian and Bosnian products, saying the move was in retaliation for Belgrade’s efforts to thwart recognition of its former province.

In Brussels, a visibly angry Vucic said that talks with Pristina will continue when it cancels its “illegal decisions”.

“When somebody threatens to send troops to the north, it introduces tariffs of 10 per cent and ten years after signing, they violate the CEFTA agreement, how can one expect us to agree on anything?” Vucic told Serbian public broadcaster RTS upon leaving the meeting.

He said he does not want to talk about the conditions for continuing the dialogue, but stressed that “none of our people will appear in Brussels until Pristina withdraws all illegal acts.”

Kosovo’s Thaci told journalists that the meeting was tense, with many confrontations.

“It remains to be seen in the future how things will move, but it is not an easy challenge to face this Serbian apparatus,” he said. “The Serbian discourse was aggressive and arrogant, and our discourse was with arguments to achieve a balanced agreement that would mean mutual recognition and joining UN and replacement of Resolution 1244,” he added.

Mogherini’s office replied with a press release saying that the EU expects Serbia and Kosovo to swiftly deliver on their commitment to the Dialogue given the direct link between comprehensive normalisation of relations between them and the concrete prospects for their EU aspirations.

Kosovo and Serbia should “refrain from words, actions and measures that are contrary to the spirit of normalisation,” the press release of the EU External Action Service read after the meeting.

This was Vucic and Thaci’s first meeting since July 18, after Vucic unexpectedly cancelled a meeting with his Kosovo counterpart in Brussels.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia has vowed never to recognise it. However, both countries are under pressure to solve the decade-long dispute, if they are to assure themselves a future as part of the EU.

President Donald J. Trump has a special, strained take on the world. Defeat is simply victory viewed in slanted terms. Victory for the other side is defeat elaborately clothed. Both views stand, and these alternate with a mind bending disturbance that has thrown the sceptics off any credible scent. “It wasn’t me being slow,” came Frank Bruni’s lamentation in The New York Times. “It was America.” Dazzlingly unsettling, the results has been tight “but many of the signals they sent were mixed and confusing.”

Those daring to make predictions that the House would fall to the Democrats were not disappointed, even if they could not be said to be spectacular. Losses to the incumbent party in the White House in the mid-terms tends to be heavy, varying between 24 and 30. President Barack Obama’s presidency bore witness to 63 loses to his party in 2010. On this occasion, the GOP yielded ground in Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The Senate, just to press home the sheer polarity of the results, slid further into red territory. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, who had, in any case, been deemed quite vulnerable in the state, fell to Mike Braun. Braun was one who drank from the cup of Trumpism, a move which seems to have paid off. Missouri Democratic senator Clair McCaskill succumbed to Republican challenger Josh Hawley. North Dakota also turned red.

The Democrats showed some resurgence in various state level capitols. Key governor’s seats were reclaimed, though their victories in Illinois, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin were matched by Republicans clawing on to Florida. The governor’s offices of Arizona and Ohio also remained in the hands of the GOP. The defeat of Republican Scott Walker in Wisconsin was particularly sweet, given his lingering dedication to the abridgment of union rights that resulted in an effective end to collective bargaining for public workers.

Moving aside the gripping minutiae and individual bruising, and the US is a state fractured and splintering, putting pay to such notions as “waves” of any one party coming over and overwhelming opponents. Walls – psychic, emotional and philosophical – have been erected through the country.

Rural areas remain estranged from their urban relatives; urban relatives remain snobbishly defiant, even contemptuous, of the interior. “The midterms,” came a gloomy Mike Allen in Axios AM, “produced a divided Congress that’s emblematic of a split America, drifting further apart and pointing to poisonous years ahead.” The angry voter was very much in vogue, be it with record liberal turnouts in suburbs, or high conservative voter participation in Trumpland.

What Trump succeeded in doing after the mid-terms was implanting himself upon the GOP, grabbing the party by the throat, thrashing it into a sense that their hope of survival in the next two years rests with him. He could blame losses on Republicans who decided to keep him at tongs length, those who “didn’t embrace me”, while Democrats who sided against his choice of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh were duly punished.

Trump could also smirk with excitement that the punditry is still awry about how to assess the US political landscape. Republican pollster Frank Luntz insists in a magical two to three percent “hidden Trump” vote that analysts refuse to factor into their calculations.

The news conference in the East Room provided Trump the perfect platform to spin, adjust and revise. He also reverse heckled, striking out at journalists with brutal surliness. PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor was accused of asking a “racist question” in pressing for his position on white nationalists. “It’s a very terrible thing that you said.”

He could also weigh heavily into his favourite playground targets, one being CNN’s Jim Acosta. “CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.” (The politics of playground fancy also took another turn, with Acosta’s accreditation subsequently suspended “until further notice” by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.)

As has been frequent, if scattered, the president was not entirely off the message in attempting to reason the results. The “wave” that was supposedly to come from the Democrats had not exactly drowned the GOP, and in terms of performance, he could happily point to a Republican increase of numbers in the Senate.

He then brandished a weapon he has mastered since he became president: the art, less of the deal than the diversion. Within hours of the results coming in, Attorney General Jeff Sessions came another addition to the long list of casualties that has made this administration particularly bloody. Zac Beauchamp supplied a depressed note in Vox: the sacking of the marginalised and mocked Sessions was not shocking, which made it worse, a sort of normalised contempt. “The truth is that Trump firing Sessions, and temporarily replacing him with a loyalist named Matthew Whitaker who has publicly denounced the special counsel investigation, should scare us.”

Trump, for his part, anticipates “a beautiful, bipartisan type of situation” working with Democrat House leader Nancy Pelosi. “From a deal-making standpoint, we are all much better off the way it turned out.” Far from being further rented, the chances for legislation have presented themselves, though the president was just as happy to issue a slap down warning: avoid initiating any investigations. “They can play that game, but we can play it better because we have the United States Senate.” As the dark lord of the Bush era, Karl Rove, surmised with apposite force: “Let’s be clear… Both parties are broken.”

Eighty years ago, Winston Churchill called to build an iron curtain to defend the democratic states from the evil soviet expansion. Hence, the trial of democracy began around the globe. It was the beginning of Cold War, which had divided the world into major blocs: Capitalists and Communists.

With the beginning of the Cold War, the preparation for the forthcoming conflicts became the pivotal feature of the leading societies of the world. Though, the war was won by the capitalist bloc by dismembering the Soviet Union, but since then, the omnipotence of democratic victory is suffering from the moral guilt. Although, the amelioration of the authoritarian victims began around the world, more and more states joined the path to democracy—what Huntington called “The Third Wave”. But the question that took the headlines globally was—Did the cold war really end?

It has been more than two decades; the world has been enchanting the victory of liberal democratic order but with a new narrative of revisionism in the East. According to various historians of the cold war, the major reason behind the victory of west against the Soviet Union was its economic victory.

Today, the democratic tides of the Western world are turning towards apocalyptic paradox. Because, the rise of China in the East as an economic power house after 2008, has further inflamed the narrative of global political revisionism calling it the beginning of cold war 2.0. In 2008, Chinese economy was smaller than Japan but now, china’s economy is equal to the combine economy of the 19-euro zone countries. Moreover, the overall GDP of China in terms of purchasing power is $21 trillion, which is far greater than the United States.

On the contrary, the global political economy is in record decline, while China is the only country which is benefiting a lot from the global recession. Though, in the post-world war II era, western nations have extracted themselves from epidemic and wrenching poverty, but the crisis have much deepened in the modern times. And, the United States have failed to provide alternative to the crisis of global economy such as falling growth rate and rising income inequality.

The global democracies are really suffering from the Moral guilt because they are in complete retreat due to rise of revisionist powers such as China and Russia. With rapid development and economic progress, China has given an alternative to the western multi-party democracy and free market capitalism. The Chinese model is very simple: managed capitalism and limited market reforms alongside socialist ideals. In the recent years, this model has profoundly inspired and attracted various states in Asia and Africa. Especially, in Africa the Chinese model has become avaricious desire of the African leaders, who want to stay in power for a longer period.

Currently, the world is suffering from the epidemic of profound polarization at socio-political and economic level. In addition, the people around the world have become disenchanted with Capitalist democracy and are searching for new direction that could take them out of the crisis. The major motive behind this disenchantment is the fear of the forthcoming political crisis and economic recession.

At political level, the resurgence of populism is threatening the pluralistic politics of the West democracies. According to some Europeans, China’s growing engagement with Europe will one day undermine the European democracy and the frightening Europeans are suggesting that Europe must think about itself with collective approach because a divided Europe cannot stand longer before the bigger China. But, with unity and collective approach Europe can face China’s growing influence for decades to come by safeguarding the democratic ideals.

On the contrary, it is an established fact that, when the downturn comes toxic politics and economic war begins—Europe has a very good experience of such dips. This time, America seems less interested to recue Europe from economic recession because the focus is centered on domestic economy under the administration of Donald Trump. His recent tax cuts and protectionist policies has lifted the American economy with annual growth of 4%. Yet, according to IMF, the growth will face decline in every big advanced economy and the emerging markets will face financial wobble. It is because of the economic diversion that would lead big economies towards the crisis of monetary policy. The Fed Reserve has increased the interest rate by 8% since 2015, that has doubled the value of dollar, sending out shock waves to the global stock markets. Amidst of the American tight monetary policy, China has loosened its monetary policy to stabilize its economic growth. In addition, the rise of dollar has already thrown turkey, Argentina and Pakistan into economic turmoil. And, it seems vivid that the sudden American economic thrive with tariffs and rising interest rates could bring a shallow recession in the global economy.

In contrast, China is not going to be affected directly from this recession because of the presence of large foreign exchange reserves at its disposal. And, China will continue to export its economic model to friendly countries, which in one way or another embrace the economic prosperity of China.

Consequently, in this shallow conflict, the loser would be “democracy”, whose bigger size is shrinking from within leading it towards systematic paradox—which means this time, it is too big to hail.

*Shahzada Rahim is a postgraduate student of Politics and International studies with keen interest of writing on History, current affairs, geopolitics and international political economy.

The Future Frontiers of 2018 are:

Cause for hope

• Quantum biology: Birds’ ability to navigate thousands of miles or DNA’s propensity to mutate are examples of how biology has evolved to take advantage of quantum behaviours. Nascent research into the role quantum physics plays in the human brain could unlock some of science’s greatest mysteries.
• Machine learning through small data: Artificial intelligence (AI) currently requires huge amounts of data to make relatively small advances in functionality. Conversely, the human brain can typically achieve excellent outcomes through its ability to generalize using very little data. Machines gaining the agility of the human mind would be a game changer.
• Room temperature conductivity: The ability to transmit and store electricity without loss or degradation could herald a clean energy revolution and enable new technologies. Currently, superconductivity is difficult to achieve and prohibitively expensive, a situation that scientists are working to change.
• Venomics: If only the medicines we use today were as effective as natural toxins and venom in binding themselves to specific targets in the human body. With more than 220,000 individual species producing nature’s perfect “super drugs”, the race is on to harness this potential for good.

Cause for concern

• Lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS): Drones and robots have a huge role to play in building prosperous, peaceful societies. Unfortunately, they can also be used in warfare. More worrying still, once deployed they could make their own decisions about the use of lethal force.
• Digital phenotyping: The ability to use technology to predict illness or ailments that are invisible to the human eye is rapidly becoming a reality. The implications for privacy and digital rights are profound if government, companies or third parties discovered a means by which to use the same techniques to secretly capture changes in our mental health.
• Non-invasive neuromodulation: The ability to stimulate the brain using electrical currents is opening up a world of new treatment for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease or depression. Without clear regulation, the same techniques could be used to deliver unfair advantages, reinforcing inequalities. Worse still, there is the potential for government to use it to manipulate the mental states of specific groups, such as soldiers.
• Predictive Justice: AI, neuroimaging and big data has opened up a world of possibilities when it comes to identifying individuals and scenarios where a crime is likely to occur. The downside is the risk that the same techniques are used to produce fake evidence and protect the guilty.

We started our NYC activities this past Tuesday in soggy style, but yesterday, under brilliant sunny skies, the action became a moving procession. About 70 people formed a single file to carry backpacks, placards, signs bearing the names of children, and various banners, past the U.S. Mission to the UN, past the Saudi Mission, and over to the consulate. Today we did the same, anticipating that those who stood in front of the consulate would be arrested.

Independent news outlets such as Al Jazeera and Democracy Now! came out to cover us – Kathy Kelly will be interviewed on the protests and on the general situation in Yemen on the DN! broadcast tomorrow, Friday November 10th.

By 11:30 this morning, on Dorothy Day’s birthday, about 90 people had gathered at the Isaiah Wall for a procession to the Saudi consulate. The mourning women led our march, garbed in large masks and veils, holding limp grey dolls that represent the thousands of children facing death in Yemen. Jun Sun and a companion followed, their drumbeats guiding us. Six people carried placards describing the terrible attack on a children’s schoolbus in northern Yemen.

The attack happened on August 9, 2018. This week in Yemen, children who had survived were going back for the first time to their classes, carrying their blue U.N. backpacks from the day of the attack, splattered with their classmates’ blood. So today in New York, people willing to risk arrest carried blue backpacks and signs naming the children who had been killed. Others followed with banners. Nick Mottern joined us with a drone replica, an apt reminder of U.S. aerial attacks and drone surveillance in Yemen.

Felton Davis and Ed Kinane held a banner and blocked the entrance to the U.S. Mission to the UN. They were later released without charge.

The procession continued past the Saudi Mission to the UN and over to the Saudi Consulate on Second Avenue. Members of our group swiftly set up a presence in front of three entrances to the building, urging people not to enter because it is too dangerous: criminal activities have been going on and all who have cause to be in the building should be aware of the crucial importance of ending the murderous, tortuous activities carried out by the Saudi government. Brian Terrell points out that, just as you would be concerned if office workers in your building were involved in human trafficking or drug smuggling, people should be alarmed over the Saudi government’s murderous practices as it makes war on Yemen. As Buddy Bell intoned the names of children killed on August 9 and raised a lament for Yemeni families, our response was “We Remember You.”

We sang and chanted for over two hours. At least two dozen police carrying plastic cuffs arrived, along with a NYPD Detective named Bogucki, who told us he recalled arresting some of us during the late ’90s and in the years leading up to the Shock and Awe bombing in Iraq. From 1996 to 2003, we had protested the sacrifice and slaughter of Iraqi children. Detective Bogucki said we are preaching to the choir when we tell him about crimes happening inside the consulate, and other offices that prolong war in Yemen. Recognizing our complicity, we believe “the choir” must unite by resisting child sacrifice, child slaughter.

Word arrived from one of the blockade groups that the New York Police Department had decided not to arrest anyone in our group. We eventually formed a circle, confirmed our collective determination to continue outreach, witness and resistance, expressed many thank yous, and dispersed.

Our hearts remain with Yemeni families agonizing over the dire plight of loved ones in Yemen. We thank Yemenis who have stood up, in more precarious settings, to call for an end to the fighting. And we look forward to supporting their calls for peace in every way we can, until this dreadful war is over.

Hating Trump is not enough as 2016 and now 2018 has shown. Equally, Trump may have reached a point where delivery is more important than inciting the base and pitting one side against another.

By Seema Sirohi

The US midterm elections were seen as a national referendum on President Donald Trump. The mixed results, after months of negative campaign rhetoric, established that Trump continues to resonate with roughly half the country.

The verdict was a fair reflection of the national cultural profile — the liberal, inclusive, urban and multi-ethnic voters versus their conservative, xenophobic, rural and mostly white counterparts. One wants to bury “Trumpism,” the other wants to praise it.

Ever since Trump got elected, the pundits, including Republican opinion makers, haven’t stopped lamenting the blight he has wrought upon the “shining city on a hill,” an America that was a near perfect blend of moral and democratic values until he came along.

It’s time the commentariat acknowledged the real blend of the country.

If 2016 was a rude shock to liberals, 2018 is a reckoning — the US has electorally significant numbers of people who are deeply anxious about the changing demographics, also called the “browning of America.” They agree with Trump’s brand of politics and they go to the polls too.

As widely expected, the Democrats took the House of Representatives while the Republicans held the Senate. They also wrested seven governorships from Republicans, making a total of 23 blue states.

Was it a “blue wave,” as many had hoped? Not quite but it was a pretty good showing for a party torn by some internal soul searching and generational fights.

The Democrats would have done much better if not for what are being called “structural disadvantages” — complicated voter registration laws in Republican-controlled states, which specifically target minorities and make voting an extremely difficult undertaking.

Or gerrymandering which is the art of manipulating boundaries of a Congressional district to favour one party and the Republicans have done massive gerrymandering in various states.

Republicans, having strengthened their numbers in the Senate, can legitimately say the results were not quite the repudiation of Trump’s high-voltage, nativist and incendiary politics as some had feared. But the voters did send a message of rebuke.

But Trump, in typical style, declared victory and took credit for delivering those Republicans who espoused his style of politics and aligned with him. He had openly declared himself the central figure even though he wasn’t on the ballot.

With the House gone to the Democrats, Trump will face roadblocks in implementing its political agenda. And he will fight back.

Trump’s first act after polls 

Trump’s first official act following the elections was to oust his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, with whom he has been sparring for more than a year. He named Matthew Whitaker, a true believer and supporter, as his replacement.

Democrats suspect Trump wants to shut down Robert Mueller next, the special counsel looking into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

With Whitaker’s help, Trump can reduce Mueller’s authority with a thousand cuts — limit his budget, restrict his mandate — making the investigation difficult. That could result in a constitutional crisis and the Congress would be expected to act.

The House under Democratic control will be a check of sorts on the President as the leadership of key committees with investigative powers changes hands. Trump’s personal taxes, finances, family ties, and Russia connections could come under the scanner.

A record number of women have won House seats — 115 out of a total of 435, including the first Muslim American, the first two native Americans and the youngest. They will generate their own dynamic, given the momentum of #MeToo movement and Trump’s reputation and record. Most of the women are Democrats.

The big question is how far the Democrats will go in declaring “war” against the Republicans. Will they try to avenge all the slights?

In light of the Republican majority pushing through the controversial appointment of conservative Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite serious allegations of sexual assault, the Democrats will surely remember how former President Barack Obama wasn’t allowed to nominate a judge to the Supreme Court because the Republicans subverted the rules and declared the nomination had to wait until after the 2016 election.

The more aggressive Democrats have been talking tough about a “tsunami of subpoenas” and possible impeachment proceedings but Nancy Pelosi, the senior most Democrat, who will likely be the speaker of the House again, struck a calmer tone.

She said the Democrats had “a constitutional responsibility” to have oversight of the White House but she also added she was willing to work with the Republicans in a spirit of bipartisanship “to unify our country.”

Trump has already laid the ground for retaliation if the Democrats aggressively investigate his past — he will use allies in the Senate to probe alleged misconduct by Democrats.

In his first press conference after the results, he said he would adopt a “warlike posture” if the Democrats went after him. “They can play that game, but we can play it better,” he said. And yes, he does play this game better because he makes the rules as he goes along.

The choice for the Democrats will be to either accomplish something — healthcare is a top priority for voters on both sides — or fight and block Trump. They will have to judge what their mandate actually means and how to honour it.

Hating Trump is not enough as 2016 and now 2018 has shown. Equally, Trump may have reached a point where delivery is more important than inciting the base and pitting one side against another. He has to begin making deals on the domestic front, whether on the price of medicines or funding infrastructure projects.

Things may get worse before they get better but there is a remote possibility that bipartisanship may break out.

Climate change is impacting the Caribbean, with millions facing increasing food insecurity and decreasing freshwater availability as droughts become more likely across the region, according to new Cornell University research in Geophysical Research Letters.

Since 1950, the Caribbean region has seen a drying trend and scattered multiyear droughts. But the recent Pan-Caribbean drought in 2013-16 was unusually severe, placing 2 million people in danger of food insecurity.

In Haiti, for example, over half of the crops were lost in 2015 due to drought, which pushed about 1 million people into food insecurity, while an additional 1 million people suffered food shortages throughout the region, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs.

Examining climatological data from the 2013-16 Pan-Caribbean drought, anthropogenic warming accounted for a 15 to 17 percent boost of the drought’s severity, said lead author Dimitris Herrera, postdoctoral associate in earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell.

Beyond growing crops, the Caribbean also faces dwindling freshwater resources, due to saltwater intrusion from rising seas and pressure from agricultural and municipal sectors.

“This paper documents that human activity is already affecting the drought statistics of the region,” said Toby Ault, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, and a fellow at Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. “Hot temperatures in the future will probably continue to play an increasingly important role in exacerbating droughts.”

Although the Caribbean has recently been affected by catastrophic hurricanes – such as Maria and Irma – that caused significant and rapid damage, persistent droughts can slowly bring havoc to vulnerable Caribbean countries, said Herrera: “This is especially true for the agriculture and tourism sectors of this region, which are the most important contributors to gross domestic product in most Caribbean nations.”

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced in a press briefing that “Spanish people will no longer pay mortgage tax, but rather banks will”. Sánchez announced that the Council of Ministers will approve a Royal Decree-Law on Thursday to amend Section 29 of the Property Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty so that banks pay this tax.

The government will take this measure following the ruling handed down on Tuesday by the Judicial Review Division of the Supreme Court to “reject the appeal lodged and return to the criteria whereby the taxpayer of Stamp Duty for mortgage loans is the borrower”. The change will come into force when it is published in the Official State Journal.

Sánchez stated that “the government respects the work and independence of the judiciary, but regrets the ruling handed down”. The government, added the Prime Minister, “has a commitment to legal certainty and to citizens’ interests”. For that reason, he asserted, “the government will guarantee a foreseeable and stable scenario in the interests of all the operators involved”.

In the same vein, Sánchez reported that the government will send Parliament a proposal on the creation of the Independent Authority to Protect Clients of Financial Products, which will seek to strengthen protection against abuse, improve the capacity to resolve conflicts and guarantee legal certainty.
Stamp Duty