Author: CNN

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

CNN
 — 

An insect found on the side of a Fayetteville, Arkansas, big-box store has been identified as the species Polystoechotes punctata, which belongs to a family of insects that predates the dinosaurs.

Michael Skvarla, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Insect Identification Lab, spotted the Jurassic-era creature, otherwise known as a giant lacewing, on a shopping trip in 2012, when he was a doctoral student of entomology at the University of Arkansas.

“I remember it vividly, because I was walking into Walmart to get milk and I saw this huge insect on the side of the building,” Skvarla said in a statement. “I thought it looked interesting, so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers. I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade.”

Skvarla initially had misidentified the lacewing as an antlion, a dragonfly-like insect that shares certain features, including long transparent wings, with the lacewing. But after presenting the insect to his online entomology course in the fall of 2020, he realized that what he had all those years was something much rarer and more impressive.

He performed further DNA analyses to confirm the identity of the insect, and the giant lacewing has now become part of the Frost Entomological Museum’s collection at Penn State.

The giant lacewing vanished in the 1950s from eastern North America, where it was formerly widespread, according to the paper Skvarla coauthored that was published in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. Scientists thought the species had been completely wiped out in the region. The recent discovery of the lacewing in Arkansas is the first record of the species in the state.

“Entomology can function as a leading indicator for ecology,” Skvarla said in the statement. “The fact that this insect was spotted in a region that it hasn’t been seen in over half a century tells us something more broadly about the environment.”

While the mysterious disappearance of the insect is suspected to have been due to efforts to suppress natural forest fires in eastern North America, according to the paper, the bigger mystery is how the insect ended up at a superstore in an urban area of Arkansas.

“It could have been 100 years since (the species) was even in this area — and it’s been years since it’s been spotted anywhere near it. The next closest place that they’ve been found was 1,200 miles away, so very unlikely it would have traveled that far,” Skvarla said. He suggested the lacewing was attracted to the lights and flew at least a few hundred meters from where it had been living.

Skvarla’s find has opened the door for future lacewing discoveries, as insect enthusiasts begin to check their own collections and search for the species in the wild in places they hadn’t thought to look before, said Dr. Floyd Shockley, the collections manager for the department of entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

“Anytime that you find an insect species not in a place that you’re used to it being, that has a lot of implications for our understanding of that species — the kind of distribution it has, the kind of ecosystem that it might require to complete its lifecycle,” Shockley said. “It means something that we thought was gone, at least from the Eastern US, may still be there, and it’s just hiding in small pockets.”

Shockley also noted the importance of museum collections, such as the one with the Smithsonian or at Penn State, where the lacewing resides, as they “help to capture different snapshots of biodiversity across time and allows us to see what is happening and why it is happening.”

“Everybody always sort of focuses in on the big stuff — big birds and mammals and things like that. But this is an insect world. … We’re just living on it,” Shockley said. “It is really important to have that sort of appreciation. And one of the nice things about insects is that there is so much diversity for you to appreciate, just in your backyard.”

CNN
 — 

The folks running TSA security checkpoints at airports have some real humdingers to tell about the things they uncover. Soiled money. Inert grenades. Drugs inside scrunchies.

But cats? Live cats? Tucked inside carry-ons? It’s happened before, and now it’s happened again.

On Friday morning at Norfolk International Airport in Virginia, a feline was discovered inside a passenger’s carry-on bag during a security screening.

The Transportation Security Administration released an X-ray photo of the poor pet cat in its official Twitter feed.

The tweet came with one of the TSA usual puns: “Attention pet owners: Please do not send your pet through the X-ray unit. Cat-astrophic mistake!”

How did all of this even come to happen?

“This was a case where the passenger was traveling with their pet,” LIsa Farbstein, a spokesperson for the TSA, told CNN Travel by email on Friday afternoon. “They knew the pet was in a carry-on bag, because this was a pet travel case/container.

“It appears that the individual either did not know to remove the pet from the carry-on travel case before going through the checkpoint, or forgot to do so,” she said.

“When that happens, they have to start all over again, meaning that the passenger and the cat have to start over at the checkpoint.

“The passenger needs to remove the pet from a carry case and carry it through the walk-through metal detector or walk the pet through the metal detector on a leash. This is typical of how people travel with small dogs. In the case of a cat, if there is no leash, we strongly recommend that the passenger requests screening in a private screening room.”

She said the reason is because “cats tend to be more skittish than dogs and might wiggle, scratch, bite and jump down and try to run away.”

This news release from the TSA this past Christmas has some tips, and you can find out additional guidelines from the Federal Aviation Administration.

CNN
 — 

A federal agency has issued a new advisory urging major freight rail companies “to take immediate safety measures to look at the performance of the protective coverings over the pressure relief valves,” a spokesperson for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said Thursday.

The advisory, which does not mandate the measures, came as federal investigators probe further into the February 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Several cars from the Norfolk Southern train were carrying the highly combustible chemical vinyl chloride when they derailed. The fiery wreck has since sparked outrage and health concerns in the local community.

Pressure relief devices are designed to prevent pressure inside tank cars from building up and potentially causing an explosion.

After the train derailed, officials determined at least one train car containing vinyl chloride had malfunctioning safety valves, and authorities worried pressure buildup in that car could lead to a catastrophic explosion of the chemical – hurling toxic fumes and deadly shrapnel up to a mile away. Crews averted such an explosion by breaching cars containing vinyl chloride, draining the hazardous chemical into a trench and burning it off.

Several of the tank cars had aluminum coverings meant to protect the valves and relieve pressure from tank cars to prevent damage, according to the PHMSA – a branch of the US Department of Transportation.

“In this instance, the aluminum housing covers melted in the fire caused from the derailment,” a PHMSA spokesperson told CNN. “That’s why we are issuing this Safety Advisory … that requests all rail companies review their fleets to determine if they have aluminum protective coverings and consider actions including replacing these covers with steel that can withstand greater exposure to heat and fire.”

The advisory came as all seven major freight rail companies in the United States, including Norfolk Southern, confirmed their participation in a voluntary safety reporting program, according to a Thursday letter sent to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from Ian Jefferies, CEO of the Association of American Railroads.

CNN first reported the companies’ expected participation earlier Thursday, citing a Biden administration source.

The reporting program, known as the Confidential Close Call Reporting System, is a voluntary program that allows workers to report safety hazards. Buttigieg had asked the companies’ CEOs to join the system and gave them by the end of the week to inform him of their decision, saying the program protects workers “from reprisal when they come forward.”

“We are committed to continuing the 20-year trend of continuous safety improvements in the rail industry,” Jefferies wrote in his letter.

In an investigative update on the derailment published Thursday, the National Transportation Safety Board also said it was “looking closely” at aluminum protective covers used on three of the vinyl chloride tank cars that derailed.

Investigators believe the aluminum covers on some tank cars may have melted in the fire and dripped into some pressure relief devices, “possibly degrading their performance,” the agency said.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told CNN earlier Thursday addressing this issue would not have prevented the derailment.

The pressure relief valves from these cars will undergo further examination later this month, the NTSB said.

The agency, which has been probing what may have caused the derailment, has said it could issue urgent recommendations at any point during its investigation.

TIMELINE: Here’s what has happened since the derailment

Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern was expected at a public meeting with East Palestine residents Thursday evening.

The company, which has been ordered by the EPA to fully clean up the wreck, backed out of a town hall with local officials last month, citing threats against its employees.

The toxic wreck left an immense amount of contaminated soil and liquids at the crash site – hazardous waste that’s now being trucked out for disposal.

In addition to residents who reported health effects, crews involved in the clean-up have also reported symptoms, according to a letter on behalf of workers’ unions to Buttigieg and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. CNN has reached out to Norfolk Southern for comment on the letter.

So far, roughly 2.1 million gallons of liquid wastewater have been removed from East Palestine, the governor said in a Thursday news release, citing Ohio’s EPA. That waste has been shipped to sites in Ohio, Texas and Michigan to be “disposed of through deep well injection,” the release said.

And roughly 1,400 tons of solid waste have been removed from the derailment site and taken to sites in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, according to the release.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said Thursday the state will contract a third-party company to test the waste coming to his state for “dangerous levels of dioxins.” That sampling is scheduled to begin Friday, the governor said.

Earlier in the week, Holcomb said he was stunned to learn the waste would be headed to Indiana.

Crews in East Palestine will also begin removing the train tracks at the site of the derailment to remove the waste, including contaminated soil, underneath.

That work could begin as early as Friday, EPA officials said during a Thursday evening town hall.

The process would involve removing one side of the tracks, digging out the contaminated soil, conducting sampling and then replacing the tracks, EPA response coordinator Mark Durno said.

The same would then be done on the other side of the tracks, Durno added.

Officials have repeatedly said ongoing tests of the air and municipal water in East Palestine show both are safe.

In his Thursday update, Ohio’s governor said the latest lab results continue to show “no detection of contaminants” tied to the derailment in the municipal water and results from private water system tests also show no harmful levels of contaminants.

More than 150 private systems have been sampled, he added.

But residents remain wary of what impacts the wreck could have on their health – and community – in the longterm.

The federal EPA said Thursday it will require Norfolk Southern to test directly for dioxins – a kind of environmental pollutant – in East Palestine. Dioxins are considered to have significant toxicity and can cause disease, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

“If dioxins are found at a level that poses any unacceptable risk to human health and the environment, EPA will direct the immediate cleanup of the area as needed,” the agency said in a news release.

“EPA will also continue sampling for ‘indicator chemicals,’ which based on test results to date, suggest a low probability for release of dioxin from this incident,” the release added.

Since the wreck, locals have reported health ailments – like nausea and rashes – they worry are connected to the chemicals released after the wreck.

A lingering fruity chemical smell is caused by residual butyl acrylate, Ohio EPA Director Anne Vogel told CNN Wednesday evening.

Butyl acrylate, which is among the materials the train was carrying, is used to make plastics and paint. It’s possible to inhale it, ingest it or absorb it through the skin. It irritates the eyes, skin and lungs and may cause shortness of breath, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Repeated exposure can lead to lung damage.

Vogel said the levels being detected in water sampling are much lower than the federal hazard level for the compound in drinking water and well below levels that would cause immediate health effects, but added she did not know whether there could be longterm health effects. A health study currently underway may be able to help shed light on that, she said.

CNN
 — 

The 95th Academy Awards are just about a week away, which means there’s still time to watch some of the nominated films and performances.

Many of the movies on the Oscars ballot are now available on streaming services. The multiverse-hopping opus “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – leading the pack with 11 nominations – can be viewed on Showtime Anytime.

Netflix is the place to watch “All Quiet on the Western Front,” with nine nominations to its name, while HBO Max offers viewers “The Banshees of Inisherin” – also with nine nods – as well as “Elvis,” just behind those with eight. (CNN and HBO Max are both part of the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)

If Oscar-nominated blockbusters are more your speed, Disney+ has you covered with “Avatar: The Way of the Water,” up for best picture among other categories, and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” starring record-setting Oscar nominee Angela Bassett.

This year, all the best picture nominees are available for streaming in fact, either via subscription or for paid on-demand rental. An exhaustive list follows.

Best picture: “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Best actress: “Blonde”

Best original song: “RRR”

Best animated feature: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “The Sea Beast”

Best adapted screenplay: “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”

Best picture: “Elvis,” “The Banshees of Inisherin”

Best picture: “Avatar: The Way of the Water”

Best supporting actress, best original song: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

Best animated feature: “Turning Red”

Best picture: “The Fabelmans,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Women Talking” (all for rental)

Best actor: “The Whale” (for purchase), “Aftersun” (for rental)

Best actress: “To Leslie” (for rental)

Best original song: “Tell It like a Woman” (for rental)

Best supporting actor: “Causeway”

Best animated feature: “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (for purchase)

Best picture, best actress: “TÁR”

Best picture, best original song: “Top Gun: Maverick”

Best picture: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best animated feature: “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”

CNN
 — 

Patrick Wojahn, the mayor of College Park, Maryland, resigned after authorities arrested him on 56 counts of child pornography-related charges, Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz said during a Thursday news conference with Jessica Garth, a representative from the State’s Attorney’s Office.

Wojahn is in custody at the Prince George’s County Department of corrections and will soon meet a commissioner who will make a determination on Wojahn’s “bond, or whether he will be held, or whether he will be released on pre-trial release,” Garth said.

“If he is not released, he will see a judge. That hearing will most likely be tomorrow,” Garth added.

Wojahn sent a letter of resignation Wednesday night, and his resignation is effective as of Thursday, a news release from the city said.

“Mayor Patrick L. Wojahn submitted his letter of resignation as Mayor of the City of College Park, effective immediately on March 2,” it said. “Mayor Wojahn has served in this position since 2015 and on Council since 2007. The City of College Park thanks Mayor Wojahn for his many years of dedicated service.”

Mayor Pro Tem Denise Mitchell will serve the city in the interim, until a Special Election is held for another mayor, the release said.

An attorney for Wojahn said in an email he’s “cooperating fully with law enforcement.”

“While too early to comment on the allegations, we will continue to cooperate as the process unfolds,” the email added.

In his resignation letter, Wojahn said, “While this investigation does not involve any official city business of any kind, it is in the best interests of our community that I step aside and not serve as a distraction.”

College Park city officials are “shocked and disturbed” by the arrest and charges, according to a statement from the city.

“What has come to light in this investigation is a total surprise to us,” the statement said, adding, “we encourage our residents to seek any help they feel necessary” as a result of the “distressing and difficult” news.

New York
CNN
 — 

“We report. You decide.”

That was the longtime slogan of Fox News. But a deposition and private messages made public in recent weeks has exposed that even Rupert Murdoch doesn’t treat Fox News like an actual news organization.

The revelation is part of several legal filings from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the right-wing talk channel, uncovering numerous instances in which the Fox Corporation chairman brazenly directed the network’s leadership to help the Republican Party.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

Taken as a whole, the statements show that Murdoch apparently views Fox News more like an extension of the GOP than a credible news organization with a mission of informing viewers and allowing them to arrive at their own decisions.

The legal filings are littered with examples of Murdoch tipping the scales:

► Murdoch gave Jared Kushner “confidential information” about then-candidate Joe Biden’s ads “along with debate strategy” in 2020, a filing said, offering Donald Trump’s son-in-law “a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public.”

► Murdoch asked Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott to have Sean Hannity say “something supportive” about Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham ahead of the 2020 election. Murdoch explained, “We cannot lose the Senate if at all possible.”

► Following Trump’s loss, Murdoch told Scott to “concentrate on Georgia” when the state was holding a high-stakes special election that would decide the balance of power in the US Senate, instructing her to be “helping any way we can.”

► When Trump appealed for help defeating Republican West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship, Murdoch told Scott and Fox News president Jay Wallace, “Anything during day helpful but Sean [Hannity] and Laura [Ingraham] dumping on him hard might save the day.”

► When then-New York Post editor Col Allan told Murdoch that Biden’s only hope for winning the election was “to stay in his basement and not face serious questions,” Murdoch responded, “Just made sure Fox banging on about these issues. If the audience talks the theme will spread.”

Taken in isolation, any one of these actions would be considered a major scandal at an actual news organization. There would be investigations and likely disciplinary measures would ensue. But at Fox News, that’s not the case. That’s almost certainly because the leadership does not view the channel in the same way that it is marketed to viewers and advertisers.

And Murdoch isn’t the only person in leadership who seemingly doesn’t view Fox News as a straight-shooting news organization (which, to be clear, it most definitely is not). In the Dominion filings, former House Speaker turned Fox Corporation board member Paul Ryan wrote the Murdochs, “[T]he sooner we can put down the echoes of falsehoods from our side, the faster we can get onto principled loyal opposition.”

Notice the words Ryan used there: “Loyal opposition.” That’s what Ryan thinks Fox News should apparently be, in its best form.

Critics have long accused Fox News of being the “opposition” to Democratic officeholders and candidates. Honest observers have known for quite some time that that is the case. It’s just striking to hear Fox leadership like Ryan talk openly behind the scenes about what the company is at its core.

Fox News has accused Dominion of having “cherry picked” statements to unfairly malign the network. But it’s hard to see how, under any circumstances, these instructions to a supposed network news chief would be appropriate.

CNN
 — 

A Michigan man allegedly threatened on social media to kill Jewish members of the Michigan government, the FBI said, and state Attorney General Dana Nessel says she was among those targeted.

The incident adds to recent concerns about threats against public officials as well as reports of increasing antisemitic incidents across the country. It also evokes the plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as well as the at-times threatening demonstrations against Covid-19 protocols in the state.

On February 18, the FBI National Threat Operations Center told the Detroit FBI office that a person on Twitter by the handle of “tempered_reason” said he was heading to Michigan and “threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is Jewish in the Michigan govt.” Any attempt to “subdue” him would “be met with deadly force in self-defense,” the user said.

Authorities traced the Twitter handle to a man named Jack Eugene Carpenter III, who had a protection order against him and had previously been arrested by state police, according to the complaint filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Carpenter had three 9mm handguns registered in Michigan’s Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), the complaint said. One of the guns in his possession Carpenter had “stolen” from his girlfriends, according to the complaint.

Authorities said Carpenter violated an interstate communication law, according to the complaint. He was arrested on February 18 in Texas, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Carpenter admitted to investigators that he wanted to target certain officials and Nessel was among them, the law enforcement source said. Although court documents did not reference Nessel or other officials by name, the Democratic attorney general said in a tweet Thursday that she was among the targets.

“The FBI has confirmed I was a target of the heavily armed defendant in this matter. It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my Hate Crimes & Domestic Terrorism Unit takes plots to murder elected officials,” she tweeted.

Her tweet embedded an article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency citing the case.

After the FBI observed the threatening tweet allegedly written by Carpenter, the bureau partnered with Jewish community leaders in Michigan to identify and notify certain Jewish politicians who could be a target, the law enforcement source said. Known as the “duty to warn,” it is standard protocol for the FBI to notify individuals identified during the course of an investigation that they could potentially be in danger.

Carpenter is being represented by a public defender. CNN has reached out to his attorney as well as local and national FBI offices for comment. Nessel’s office declined to immediately comment further on the matter.

“When the defendant was arrested, in his vehicle they found approximately a half dozen firearms and ammunition,” federal prosecutor Hank Moon said in court Wednesday. “One of the threats he made was to shoot somebody.”

Moon added that the government is concerned Carpenter might flee because he “does not believe he is subject to the jurisdiction of this court.” Prosecutors will argue for Carpenter’s continued detention at a court hearing on Friday.

Nessel addressed the threat while testifying in support of gun safety legislation at the state Senate Thursday.

She pointed to the irony of testifying in support of such legislation while Carpenter awaited court proceedings “based on the threats he made to use his arsenal of firearms to murder me,” Nessel said.

“As the top law enforcement agent in the state of Michigan, and as a mother, I too am exasperated and disgusted that thousands of Michigan residents fall victim each year to the scourge of senseless, preventable gun violence in our state,” Nessel testified.

Another Jewish Michigan official, state Sen. Samantha Steckloff, told “CNN This Morning” on Friday that she was informed by the FBI that she was among those allegedly targeted.

“While I said breast cancer was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to go through, it really has been these last few months,” Steckloff told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. “Putting myself out there, openly as a Jewish representative, when I’ve already received death threats on a daily basis was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. And I know even today, by showing my face, speaking out against this horrible tragedy that could have been, I’m prone to some today.”

See how antisemitism is growing to become mainstream

In addition to threats against Jewish officials in Michigan, the FBI alleges that Carpenter also made posts on Twitter in support of the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement, according to the criminal complaint.

The FBI said the Twitter account authorities claim is linked to Carpenter posted a “declaration of sovereignty” which said a country named “New Israel” was formed in a nine-mile radius of a Michigan address, which the FBI later identified as Carpenter’s residence, according to the complaint.

CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller said that among anti-government activists, the forming of self-declared independent nations or “sovereign territories” has been a growing trend, including claims of being immune from US laws and taxes.

Miller pointed out that the Twitter handle identified as Carpenter’s made a post on February 18 which said, “Courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction over the issue of sovereignty. Nor do they have personam jurisdiction over me. My status cannot be legally challenged. Any crime that has been claimed I committed I am: 1. Immune from prosecution anyway 2. All the evidence is fake.”

The FBI classifies the sovereign citizen movement as a form of domestic terrorism. In a 2011 document on a law enforcement training website, the FBI called sovereign citizens “a growing threat to law enforcement.”

“They follow their own set of laws. While the philosophies and conspiracy theories can vary from person to person, their core beliefs are the same: The government operates outside of its jurisdiction,” the FBI said in the document. “Because of this belief, they do not recognize federal, state, or local laws, policies, or regulations.”

Carpenter is a former employee of the University of Michigan, the school confirmed to CNN on Thursday. The University of Michigan said that Carpenter was employed from June 2011 until December 2021 as “a systems administrator intermediate in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.”

On February 16, the “@tempered_reason” account responded to a tweet posted by Whitmer about the Michigan State University shooting in which she expressed her heartbreak and called for greater gun control.

“You are one of the first people to be charged with treason when people stop interfering with my lawful authority to govern you. I’d speak less right now if I were you. Especially in regard to attacking rights due to your MOSSAD psyops to create a moral panic about self-defense,” Carpenter said in the tweet.

He then responded again to the tweet and said “Also, tell your MOSSAD agent/kitchen witch Nessel I said hi. As well as @MichStatePolice, because some of them are going to be in trouble soon as well. It’s coming shortly, and none of you are protected. Especially from me. You better start acting right.”

Carpenter then allegedly tweeted the threat to Jewish members of Michigan’s state government on February 17.

Carpenter also tweeted about the University of Michigan a few times last month and accused the university of firing him “for refusing to take experimental medication.”

The university told CNN it would not share additional information. CNN has reached out to Whitmer’s office for comment.

Throughout February, Carpenter also posted several tweets where he tweeted at Michigan State Police, FBI and other law enforcement officials.

The threat against Nessel and other member of Michigan’s state government is the latest of several high-profile threats and violence against Jews in America. According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic attacks reached a record high in the US in 2021 – up 34% from 2020.

Last month, a man was charged by federal prosecutors with hate crimes after he allegedly shot two different Jewish men in Los Angeles. In January, police said a man threw a Molotov cocktail at a New Jersey synagogue in an arson attempt, and in December, a 63-year-old man was assaulted in New York’s Central Park in what police called an antisemitic attack.

The White House on Thursday night called the Michigan incident “extremely concerning” and pointed to Biden administration efforts to combat gun violence and antisemitism.

“And as the President makes clear: antisemitism and hate can be given no safe harbor in America,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Atlanta/Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

The United States on Thursday added two subsidiaries of Chinese genetics company BGI to a trade blacklist over allegations it conducted genetic analysis and surveillance activities for Beijing, which Washington says was used to repress ethnic minorities in China.

The US Department of Commerce, which oversees export controls, said in a statement that BGI Research and BGI Tech Solutions (Hongkong) “present a significant risk of diversion to China’s military programs.”

“The addition of these entities is based upon information that indicates their collection and analysis of genetic data poses a significant risk of contributing to monitoring and surveillance by the government of China, which has been utilized in the repression of ethnic minorities in China,” the statement said.

CNN has reached out to BGI Group, which is one of the world’s largest genomics companies and a listed firm based in Shenzhen, for comment on its subsidiaries.

In 2020, the US Department of Commerce added two other BGI affiliates, Xinjiang Silk Road BGI and Beijing Liuhe BGI, to the trade blacklist over their alleged involvement in human right abuses against Uyghur and other mainly Muslim minorities in China’s far western region of Xinjiang.

BGI Group issued a statement at the time denying the allegations, saying it “does not engage in unethical practices and does not provide gene technology for the surveillance of Uighurs.”

Rights groups have documented human rights abuses in Xinjiang since the 2000s, including forced labor and coercive enforcement of family planning and birth control policies on Uyghur minorities, according to a damning United Nations report last year. China has regularly pushed back against these reports with firm denials.

The latest list compiled by the US Department of Commerce includes a total of 28 Chinese entities, four from Pakistan, three from Myanmar and one each from Belarus, Russia and Taiwan.

Being placed on the list means the entities are restricted from buying American technology and other goods.

Washington, DC
CNN
 — 

Mortgage rates shot up for the fourth consecutive week, as inflation concerns remain.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.65% in the week ending March 2, up from 6.5% the week before, according to data from Freddie Mac released Thursday. A year ago, the 30-year fixed-rate was 3.76%.

Rates had been trending downward after hitting 7.08% in November, but are now climbing again, up about half a percentage point in a month. Robust economic data continues to suggest the Federal Reserve is not done in its battle to cool the US economy and will likely continue hiking its benchmark lending rate.

“As we started the year, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage decreased with expectations of lower economic growth, inflation and a loosening of monetary policy,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “However, given sustained economic growth and continued inflation, mortgage rates boomeranged and are inching up toward 7%.”

The lower rates in January brought buyers back into the market, Khater said.

“Now that rates are moving up, affordability is hindered and making it difficult for potential buyers to act, particularly for repeat buyers with existing mortgages at less than half of current rates,” he said.

The average mortgage rate is based on mortgage applications that Freddie Mac receives from thousands of lenders across the country. The survey includes only borrowers who put 20% down and have excellent credit. Many buyers who put down less money upfront or have less than ideal credit will pay more than the average rate.

The benchmark rate continued to climb, building on the momentum from the past few weeks, as the 10-year Treasury hit 4% this week.

The Fed does not set the interest rates that borrowers pay on mortgages directly, but its actions influence them. Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on 10-year US Treasury bonds, which move based on a combination of anticipation about the Fed’s actions, what the Fed actually does and investors’ reactions. When Treasury yields go up, so do mortgage rates; when they go down, mortgage rates tend to follow.

“Investors are expecting inflation to remain elevated for longer, requiring the Federal Reserve to keep increasing its policy rate,” said George Ratiu, Realtor.com senior economist. “The Fed signaled that it sees its monetary tightening having an effect on price growth, but with a strong employment market, wages keep consumers spending.”

Meanwhile, Ratiu said, consumers have taken on a record amount of debt, including mortgage, personal, auto, and student loans.

“The personal savings rate has dropped significantly from the pandemic high, as high prices have been squeezing household budgets,” he said. “With rising interest rates, financial burdens are expected to increase, making consumer choices more difficult in the months ahead.”

The brief boost in mortgage and home buying activity in January as rates dropped has ended, with mortgage applications falling last week to a 28-year low, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

“The recent jump in mortgage rates has led to a retreat in purchase applications, with activity down for three straight weeks,” said Bob Broeksmit, MBA’s CEO. “After solid gains in purchase activity to begin 2023, higher rates, ongoing inflationary pressures, and economic volatility are giving some prospective home buyers pause about entering the housing market.”

Rates are trending back up and could even crest 7% again in the next couple of months, said Ratiu.

“For real estate markets, the rise in rates means higher mortgage payments, deepening the affordability challenge just as we move into the crucial spring homebuying season.”

Editor’s Note: Holly Thomas is a writer and editor based in London. She is morning editor at Katie Couric Media. She tweets @HolstaT. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
 — 

My relationship with TikTok is analogous to my relationship with church. I tend only to visit when invited by a third party, and while I’m not convinced its effects are ubiquitously positive, I’m glad it offers at least some participants comfort during their darker moments.

More to the point, I am not a true member of the congregation. TikTok belongs to Gen Z, the 11 to 26-year-olds now poised to inherit the Earth, or whatever is left of it once we millennials are sated (or rendered irrelevant). By the time news of the latest trend sweeping the platform reaches my ears its disciples had already spread the word far and wide, meaning that when I finally sat down, cracked my increasingly brittle knuckles and Googled “bare minimum Mondays,” I was met with page after page of results.

The premise, according to TikTok creator, startup founder and convert Marisa Jo Mayes, is this. Many of us spend Sundays making “insanely long to-do lists,” putting ourselves under “paralyzing” pressure to get our lives together. As a result, we hit Mondays primed for stress and unable to focus or engage properly with work. This sense of chaotic unease ripples across the week, costing us more in terms of productivity and vitality than any amount of effort can compensate for. Bare minimum Monday devotees instead make the conscious decision to coast on the first day of the working week, thus conserving their energy. “It was like some magic spell came over me,” Mayes explains. “I felt better. I wasn’t overwhelmed, and I actually got more done than I expected.”

Unlike “quiet quitting,” which was a misleading descriptor of the phenomenon it described, bare minimum Mondays do pretty much what the packet promised. The trends share one vital characteristic, though. They both present as evidence that the younger generation is made up of coddled self-care obsessives.

In practice, however, even Gen Z-ers who manage to execute bare minimum Mondays (or quiet quitting) will, in all likelihood, still enjoy an inferior ratio of effort to reward to the boomers and Gen X-ers who went before them. The same was true of millennials as they entered the workforce. The difference is, Gen Z knows what’s coming.

I’m a millennial, and like today’s entry-level workers, I graduated into sub-par conditions. In 2010, the effects of the Great Recession lingered like a persistent head cold and employers played fast and loose with laws regarding unpaid internships.

Securing remunerated work in any capacity was an ambition that necessitated relentless drive paired with zero regard for one’s own wellbeing. It was intensely competitive, and the triumph of landing a catch went some way to making up for the punishing conditions that almost inevitably followed.

The first several years of my working life passed in a haze of fluorescent office light and breakfasts consumed any time between 4 and 10 am consisting entirely of caffeine pills, Pepsi Max and coffee. I made less money each month than I’d be charged in rent a decade later and conducted my business and relationships in a permanent state of adrenalized exhaustion.

Concerned Pret A Manger baristas offered me free croissants, and lacking a permanent place to stay, I carried an overnight bag with me at all times. It was grueling, and I craved the stability afforded to my wealthier peers thanks to the flats their parents bought for them. But I also kind of loved it.

Cat Marnell, Manhattan’s notorious self-described pillhead slash “it girl” slash bestselling author (rinse and repeat, though I hear she’s clean now and good for her) captures this beautifully in her 2017 memoir “How To Murder Your Life.”

“Interning is strange heaven” she said, and she was right. It’s frenetic but suffused with aspiration, like you’re living the training montage that’ll culminate in your electrifying victory in a short few years. Or at least, that’s how it felt back in the late noughties and early 2010s.

Therein lies the difference. We millennials suffered for our embryonic careers, but though things were tough at the outset, we still clung to the promise that it would get better. Our Gen X and boomer elders all claimed to have “paid their dues” when they were young, but now they all owned houses! We had every reason to believe that at some point, our fortunes would improve and our dues would reap dividends. Gen Z enjoys no such delusions.

America remains the most overworked developed nation in the world. Productivity per employee has increased by 434% since 1950, email and Slack make it harder than ever to switch off after hours, yet the supposed rewards – like buying property – are increasingly out of reach.

What’s more, Gen Z’s older friends and colleagues, the millennials, do not bring with them the messages of hope they inherited from their Gen X forebears. A decade deeper into their working lives, many millennials remain financially precarious, still rent, can’t afford to have kids and gripe endlessly that the Covid-19 pandemic robbed them of the last vestiges of youth. We make for a pretty pathetic crystal ball.

All this to say, even those most vocal Gen Z-ers, those who repost TikToks eulogizing about the latest work-less trends, still probably work harder for less than their Gen X parents and boomer grandparents. And unlike millennials, who were at least motivated by the hope that it would all be worth it in the end, there’s no such light on the horizon for Gen Z. They have seen the future, and it’s a dog-tired millennial with a disquieting caffeine tolerance, and stale pastry crumbs on her coat.