There’s a new action-RPG based on the Fate series of games on the way. Koei Tecmo announced it is working on Fate/Samurai Remnant. The title will release worldwide in 2023. People will be able to play it on the PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC. An initial trailer is available. There is also an official website open.
Details about what to expect are vague. Type-Moon and Aniplex are involved in the game’s development. Type-Moon’s role is clarified as a supervisory one. The announcement clarified that this will tell the story of a different Holy Grail War than the one’s we’re familiar with. At the end of the footage, it appears that a version of a Servant who could be Saber Miyamoto Musashi shows up. (That character appeared in other games, like Fate/Grand Order.)
Here’s the Fate/Samurai Remnant trailer teasing the new Fate game. It doesn’t show any gameplay footage, but does show the main character meeting his Servant and the altercation with Saber Miyamoto Musashi.
The official website also noted the different companies involved. A logo for Omega Force, known for the Musou series, appears at the bottom. Type-Moon is supervising. Aniplex is helping Koei Tecmo produce it. Kou Shibusawa’s name also appears at the bottom of the site. Previously, he worked on Nioh and Nioh 2 as a producer and quite a few Nobunaga’s Ambition games.
Koei Tecmo, Type-Moon, and Aniplex’s Fate/Samurai Remnant will come to the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC in 2023.
appointed a former federal and international war-crimes prosecutor as special counsel on Friday to oversee Justice Department investigations into former President
Donald Trump.
Jack Smith, who once led the Justice Department unit that investigates public corruption and since 2018 was the chief prosecutor at The Hague investigating war crimes in Kosovo, will be the third special counsel in five years to examine issues involving Mr. Trump.
He will lead both the probe into the handling of classified documents at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and oversee key aspects of the sprawling Justice Department investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“The Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters,” Mr. Garland said in a brief memo naming Mr. Smith to the post. The memo said Mr. Smith’s remit doesn’t include cases against those who were physically present at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
The appointment comes three days after Mr. Trump announced another bid for the presidency and would mark the naming of the third independent prosecutor in five years to examine issues involving Mr. Trump.
Jack Smith previously led the Justice Department unit that investigates public corruption.
Photo:
U.S. Department of Justice
The move reflects the sensitivity of Mr. Garland overseeing any investigation into Mr. Trump now that he is a declared presidential candidate. President Biden, who has said he intends to run for re-election in 2024, nominated Mr. Garland to head the Justice Department in part for the former judge’s promise to insulate the agency from political influence.
Some legal experts have anticipated such an appointment. Regulations governing special counsels provide for the attorney general to name an outsider if he determines that the investigation or prosecution presents a conflict of interest for the department and recusals of certain officials wouldn’t be enough to overcome the concerns.
Some former Justice Department officials and prosecutors have said such an appointment wouldn’t do much to allay criticism of the FBI and Justice Department by Mr. Trump and his supporters. There are few people with the necessary prosecutorial experience and nonpartisan reputation who would be willing to take on the post, those people say.
A special-counsel appointment won’t entirely eliminate the appearance of a conflict, as Mr. Garland and other senior Justice Department officials are still likely to be involved in some decision-making related to the probe, according to people familiar with past special counsels.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol voted in mid-October to issue a subpoena for relevant documents and testimony under oath from former President Donald Trump. Photo: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Write to Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com and Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com
WILMINGTON, Del, Nov 14 (Reuters) – A trial opened Monday over shareholder allegations that Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package was rigged with easy performance targets and that investors were duped into approving it, with Musk slated to take the stand later this week.
A Tesla (TSLA.O) shareholder hopes to prove during the five-day trial that Musk used his dominance over the electric vehicle maker’s board to dictate terms of the 2018 package, which did not even require him to work at Tesla full-time.
Musk, the world’s richest person, will testify Wednesday, Greg Varallo, an attorney for shareholder Richard Tornetta, told a court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday.
The trial began with Ira Ehrenpreis, a Tesla board member since 2007, taking the stand to describe the early years of the company and Musk’s role.
“I was very impressed with his vision for this endeavor,” said Ehrenpreis.
Tornetta has asked the court to rescind the pay package, which is six times larger than the top 200 CEO salaries combined in 2021, according to Amit Batish of research firm Equilar.
Musk and Tesla’s directors, who are also defendants, have denied the allegations. They argued the pay package did what it aimed to do — ensure that the entrepreneur successfully guided Tesla through a critical period, which helped drive the stock tenfold higher.
The case will be decided by Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s Court of Chancery. She oversaw the legal dispute between Twitter Inc (TWTR.MX) and Musk that ended with his purchase of the social media platform for $44 billion last month.
The Tesla shareholder lawsuit argues that the pay package should have required Musk to work full-time at Tesla. The company’s shareholders have become concerned that Musk is distracted by Twitter, which he has warned might not survive an economic downturn.
Musk told a business conference on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday that he had too much on his plate at the moment.
Legal experts said Musk is in a better legal position in the pay case than he was in Twitter’s lawsuit, which prevented him from walking away from the takeover.
Boards have wide latitude to set executive compensation, according to legal experts.
However, directors must meet more stringent legal tests if the pay package involves a controlling shareholder, and part of this trial is likely to focus on whether that description fits Musk. While he owned only 21.9% of Tesla in 2018, plaintiffs are likely to cite what is seen as his domineering personality and ties to directors.
In all, 19 witnesses are scheduled to testify, including directors and executives from 2018, compensation experts, and advisors who helped craft the pay package.
The disputed package allows Musk to buy 1% of Tesla’s stock at a deep discount each time escalating performance and financial targets are met. Otherwise, Musk gets nothing.
Tesla has hit 11 of the 12 targets as its value ballooned briefly to more than $1 trillion from $50 billion, according to court papers.
A decision will likely take around three months after the trial and could be appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court.
Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by David Gregorio and Jonathan Oatis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Tom Hals
Thomson Reuters
Award-winning reporter with more than two decades of experience in international news, focusing on high-stakes legal battles over everything from government policy to corporate dealmaking.
The fate of the global economy may rest on the shoulders of one company: TSMC.
TSMC is the world’s biggest chipmaker — its chips power everything from cars to iPhones.
But US-China tensions, and China’s standoff with Taiwan, could cost the global economy trillions.
Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go.
On a tiny island off the coast of China, one company manufactures a product used across the globe for countless household products as varied as PCs and washing machines.
And as that island — Taiwan — worries about the threat of a standoff between the US and China, the world’s economy holds its breath. That’s because there could be trillions of dollars’ worth of economic activity tied to that one company: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s biggest chipmaker.
Industry watchers say an escalating dispute between the US and China over Taiwan could drag down the global economy, given the fact that no other company makes such advanced chips at such a high volume. If TSMC goes offline, they say, the production of everything from cars to iPhones could screech to a halt.
“If China would invade Taiwan, that would be the biggest impact we’ve seen to the global economy — possibly ever,” Glenn O’Donnell, the vice president and research director at Forrester, told Insider. “This could be bigger than 1929.”
What is TSMC?
TSMC’s factory in Nanjing, in China’s Jiangsu province.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
While TSMC may not be a household name, you almost certainly own something that’s powered by its chips.
TSMC is in the foundry business, meaning it doesn’t design its own chips but instead produces them at fabrication plants for other companies. The company accounts for over half of the global semiconductor market, and when it comes to advanced processors that number is, by some estimates, as high as 90%. In fact, even the best chip from China’s top semiconductor manufacturer, SMIC, has been said to be about five years behind TSMC’s.
TSMC counts Apple as its biggest customer, supplying the California tech giant with the chips that power iPhones. In fact, most of the world’s roughly 1.4 billion smartphone processors are produced by TSMC, as are about 60% of the chips used by automakers, according to The Wall Street Journal.
TSMC semiconductors are also used in high-performance computing: They can quickly process reams of data and guide missiles, making the company highly valuable in the eyes of government entities.
As TSMC has grown to dominate the industry, it has automatically become an oligopoly, according to William Alan Reinsch, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security think tank.
“When you have a very complex, very sophisticated, and very expensive technology where barriers to entry are very high — I mean, building a fab plant is in the billions — you can’t just decide tomorrow, ‘Well, I’m going to go into that business,'” he said. “It’s not like making tea.”
How did we become so reliant on chips made in Taiwan?
A chip being tested in a lab in Taiwan.
Ann Wang/Reuters
The semiconductor industry has its roots in the US, as much of the research and development is done on US soil. Companies in other countries license the US-made technology.
Dylan Patel, a chief analyst at the semiconductor research and consulting firm SemiAnalysis, pointed to the Dutch company ASML as an example: ASML produces high-end chipmaking equipment, but one of the technologies for which it’s best known was invented in the US National Laboratories.
Over the past 30 years or so, manufacturers in developed countries concluded it was in their best interest to outsource the manufacturing of the chips, according to Reinsch.
“You build a big factory and you crank these things out by the thousands, and you do it in a low-wage, nonunion country that probably doesn’t have environmental requirements,” he said. “You keep all the design and IP at home and you do all your sales, marketing, and service at home, and that’s where you make the money.”
It’s this approach that has directly led to the growth of chip foundries like TSMC and reduced production on American soil, Reinsch said.
According to a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association, in 1990 the US produced 37% of the world’s chip supply. These days, the US is responsible for only 12% of global chip production.
Why is this a problem now?
Container ships waiting off the coast of the congested ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, in California, on September 29, 2021.
Mike Blake/REUTERS
As the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine have illustrated, having too much reliance on certain countries can upend supply chains when disruptions arise. It’s for this reason that many US corporations are exploring “onshoring” — moving some of their manufacturing to the US — to make their supply chains more resilient.
The US’s access to TSMC chips, however, is especially vulnerable, because though Taiwan is self-governing, China claims the island as its own and has threatened to invade. Controlling Taiwan is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s goal of achieving a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
While the consequences of an invasion could be significant, many experts say it’s just a matter of time before it happens, whether it’s by 2030, 2025, or even by the end of next year. On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken predicted China would take steps to annex Taiwan on a “much faster timeline” than previously thought, signaling that it could be sooner rather than later. The US government is already playing out war-game scenarios to prepare for this, and in the event of a full invasion it would reportedly consider evacuating the skilled chipmaker engineers on which it’s become so reliant.
The spotlight has focused increasingly on Taiwan and the semiconductor industry as a whole in recent weeks following the export regulations the US government slapped on China. Those regulations limit sales of semiconductors made using US technology and are meant to curb China’s ability to develop advanced technology.
The US and China are now locked in what Patel described as “a full-scale bilateral economic cold war,” one that’s likely to have severe financial repercussions, especially given how intertwined the semiconductor supply chain is.
What would happen if China invaded Taiwan?
A Chinese military parade in June 2020.
Alexander Vilf – Host Photo Agency via Getty Images
Taiwan hopes its semiconductor business will protect it from Chinese aggression — government leaders have called the industry a “silicon shield” against invasion.
But if China did invade, disrupting the world’s access to chips, “the entire global economy comes to a screeching halt,” O’Donnell from Forrester said. “Semiconductors have become almost like the oxygen of the global economy,” he said. “Without the chips, you can’t breathe.”
The effects of such a halt would be “economically devastating,” says Martijn Rasser, a former senior intelligence officer at the CIA who is now a security and technology expert at the Center for a New American Security, a left-leaning think tank.
“You’d be looking at trillions of dollars in economic losses,” he told Insider.
The US National Security Council agrees, and in July the US commerce secretary said the US would face a “deep and immediate recession” if American businesses no longer had access to these chips.
Some experts have speculated that, in the event of an invasion, the chip-manufacturing facilities would be intentionally destroyed so China couldn’t access them. In a US Army journal article published in December, the academic Jared McKinney described this strategy as the “broken nest” — another way to put it is mutually assured destruction.
The destruction of those facilities, or an inability to access their chips, could have major national security implications, Rasser said.
“Every military system that we rely on has a ton of semiconductors in them,” he said. “It would start impacting our ability to maintain existing weapon systems, upgrade ones, build new ones.”
Considering that the US has committed to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, these hits to the US’s defense capabilities could be especially significant.
But while a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would produce the most serious disruption, Rasser says it wouldn’t necessarily take an invasion for the world’s chip access to be blocked. As well as making investments in Taiwanese firms and poaching their workers, China could institute a blockade on the island that could cut off the world from semiconductor supplies.
What’s the solution?
President Joe Biden holding the signed CHIPs Act in August.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
The US is taking some steps to make itself less reliant on Taiwan. In July, for instance, Congress passed the CHIPS Act, which includes nearly $53 billion in subsidies and tax breaks in an effort to bolster chip manufacturing in the US.
Some companies have already begun adding US facilities: Intel is building two $20 billion factories in Ohio, Micron has pledged to spend up to $100 billion on a massive chip factory in upstate New York, Samsung is building a $17 billion factory in Texas, and TSMC is constructing a $12 billion plant in Arizona.
TSMC is also building a new facility in Japan, one that will produce the less advanced chips needed in the auto industry. The Wall Street Journal reported that Japanese officials had signaled they’d like TSMC to expand its presence there by adding capacity for advanced chips as well, another sign global powers are growing wary of the geopolitical risk to Taiwan.
But O’Donnell warned it would be premature to celebrate an end to the chip shortage or to the US’s reliance on Taiwanese chips. The factories themselves require equipment that’s in short supply because of — ironically enough — the chip shortage. And besides, those plants take years to build and get online.
“Once you stick a shovel in the ground, you’re not going to get chips for at least three years,” he said.
Plus, there remain obstacles to substantially decreasing the country’s reliance on TSMC. While the subsidies and tax breaks will help, Taiwan may continue to remain the cheaper option for businesses. And, for the time being at least, TSMC’s chips are likely to be higher quality as well. Given that TSMC is “really at the cutting edge,” Rasser said, the chips produced in the US by Intel, for instance, “wouldn’t be as sophisticated” as those made in Taiwan.
While producing even these lower-quality chips would go some way to reduce the US’s reliance on Taiwan, the US has a shortfall of the skilled workforce needed to ramp up production, a problem companies in this industry are facing across the globe. Rasser says enhanced training and education will be necessary to fill this gap.
It’s for these reasons that it could be “years and potentially decades” before the US will be able to declare independence on the chipmaking front.
“The CHIPS Act, it’s a good step in the right direction, but it’s just a little more than scratching the surface,” Rasser said.
In the meantime, the US may have to cross its fingers that an economy-shaking disruption doesn’t come to pass.
The fate of the global economy may rest on the shoulders of one company: TSMC.
TSMC is the world’s biggest chipmaker — its chips power everything from cars to iPhones.
But US-China tensions, and China’s standoff with Taiwan, could cost the global economy trillions.
Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go.
On a tiny island off the coast of China, one company manufactures a product used across the globe for countless household products as varied as PCs and washing machines.
And as that island — Taiwan — worries about the threat of a standoff between the US and China, the world’s economy holds its breath. That’s because there could be trillions of dollars’ worth of economic activity tied to that one company: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s biggest chipmaker.
Industry watchers say an escalating dispute between the US and China over Taiwan could drag down the global economy, given the fact that no other company makes such advanced chips at such a high volume. If TSMC goes offline, they say, the production of everything from cars to iPhones could screech to a halt.
“If China would invade Taiwan, that would be the biggest impact we’ve seen to the global economy — possibly ever,” Glenn O’Donnell, the vice president and research director at Forrester, told Insider. “This could be bigger than 1929.”
What is TSMC?
TSMC’s factory in Nanjing, in China’s Jiangsu province.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
While TSMC may not be a household name, you almost certainly own something that’s powered by its chips.
TSMC is in the foundry business, meaning it doesn’t design its own chips but instead produces them at fabrication plants for other companies. The company accounts for over half of the global semiconductor market, and when it comes to advanced processors that number is, by some estimates, as high as 90%. In fact, even the best chip from China’s top semiconductor manufacturer, SMIC, has been said to be about five years behind TSMC’s.
TSMC counts Apple as its biggest customer, supplying the California tech giant with the chips that power iPhones. In fact, most of the world’s roughly 1.4 billion smartphone processors are produced by TSMC, as are about 60% of the chips used by automakers, according to The Wall Street Journal.
TSMC semiconductors are also used in high-performance computing: They can quickly process reams of data and guide missiles, making the company highly valuable in the eyes of government entities.
As TSMC has grown to dominate the industry, it has automatically become an oligopoly, according to William Alan Reinsch, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security think tank.
“When you have a very complex, very sophisticated, and very expensive technology where barriers to entry are very high — I mean, building a fab plant is in the billions — you can’t just decide tomorrow, ‘Well, I’m going to go into that business,'” he said. “It’s not like making tea.”
How did we become so reliant on chips made in Taiwan?
A chip being tested in a lab in Taiwan.
Ann Wang/Reuters
The semiconductor industry has its roots in the US, as much of the research and development is done on US soil. Companies in other countries license the US-made technology.
Dylan Patel, a chief analyst at the semiconductor research and consulting firm SemiAnalysis, pointed to the Dutch company ASML as an example: ASML produces high-end chipmaking equipment, but one of the technologies for which it’s best known was invented in the US National Laboratories.
Over the past 30 years or so, manufacturers in developed countries concluded it was in their best interest to outsource the manufacturing of the chips, according to Reinsch.
“You build a big factory and you crank these things out by the thousands, and you do it in a low-wage, nonunion country that probably doesn’t have environmental requirements,” he said. “You keep all the design and IP at home and you do all your sales, marketing, and service at home, and that’s where you make the money.”
It’s this approach that has directly led to the growth of chip foundries like TSMC and reduced production on American soil, Reinsch said.
According to a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association, in 1990 the US produced 37% of the world’s chip supply. These days, the US is responsible for only 12% of global chip production.
Why is this a problem now?
Container ships waiting off the coast of the congested ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, in California, on September 29, 2021.
Mike Blake/REUTERS
As the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine have illustrated, having too much reliance on certain countries can upend supply chains when disruptions arise. It’s for this reason that many US corporations are exploring “onshoring” — moving some of their manufacturing to the US — to make their supply chains more resilient.
The US’s access to TSMC chips, however, is especially vulnerable, because though Taiwan is self-governing, China claims the island as its own and has threatened to invade. Controlling Taiwan is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s goal of achieving a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
While the consequences of an invasion could be significant, many experts say it’s just a matter of time before it happens, whether it’s by 2030, 2025, or even by the end of next year. On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken predicted China would take steps to annex Taiwan on a “much faster timeline” than previously thought, signaling that it could be sooner rather than later. The US government is already playing out war-game scenarios to prepare for this, and in the event of a full invasion it would reportedly consider evacuating the skilled chipmaker engineers on which it’s become so reliant.
The spotlight has focused increasingly on Taiwan and the semiconductor industry as a whole in recent weeks following the export regulations the US government slapped on China. Those regulations limit sales of semiconductors made using US technology and are meant to curb China’s ability to develop advanced technology.
The US and China are now locked in what Patel described as “a full-scale bilateral economic cold war,” one that’s likely to have severe financial repercussions, especially given how intertwined the semiconductor supply chain is.
What would happen if China invaded Taiwan?
A Chinese military parade in June 2020.
Alexander Vilf – Host Photo Agency via Getty Images
Taiwan hopes its semiconductor business will protect it from Chinese aggression — government leaders have called the industry a “silicon shield” against invasion.
But if China did invade, disrupting the world’s access to chips, “the entire global economy comes to a screeching halt,” O’Donnell from Forrester said. “Semiconductors have become almost like the oxygen of the global economy,” he said. “Without the chips, you can’t breathe.”
The effects of such a halt would be “economically devastating,” says Martijn Rasser, a former senior intelligence officer at the CIA who is now a security and technology expert at the Center for a New American Security, a left-leaning think tank.
“You’d be looking at trillions of dollars in economic losses,” he told Insider.
The US National Security Council agrees, and in July the US commerce secretary said the US would face a “deep and immediate recession” if American businesses no longer had access to these chips.
Some experts have speculated that, in the event of an invasion, the chip-manufacturing facilities would be intentionally destroyed so China couldn’t access them. In a US Army journal article published in December, the academic Jared McKinney described this strategy as the “broken nest” — another way to put it is mutually assured destruction.
The destruction of those facilities, or an inability to access their chips, could have major national security implications, Rasser said.
“Every military system that we rely on has a ton of semiconductors in them,” he said. “It would start impacting our ability to maintain existing weapon systems, upgrade ones, build new ones.”
Considering that the US has committed to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, these hits to the US’s defense capabilities could be especially significant.
But while a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would produce the most serious disruption, Rasser says it wouldn’t necessarily take an invasion for the world’s chip access to be blocked. As well as making investments in Taiwanese firms and poaching their workers, China could institute a blockade on the island that could cut off the world from semiconductor supplies.
What’s the solution?
President Joe Biden holding the signed CHIPs Act in August.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
The US is taking some steps to make itself less reliant on Taiwan. In July, for instance, Congress passed the CHIPS Act, which includes nearly $53 billion in subsidies and tax breaks in an effort to bolster chip manufacturing in the US.
Some companies have already begun adding US facilities: Intel is building two $20 billion factories in Ohio, Micron has pledged to spend up to $100 billion on a massive chip factory in upstate New York, Samsung is building a $17 billion factory in Texas, and TSMC is constructing a $12 billion plant in Arizona.
TSMC is also building a new facility in Japan, one that will produce the less advanced chips needed in the auto industry. The Wall Street Journal reported that Japanese officials had signaled they’d like TSMC to expand its presence there by adding capacity for advanced chips as well, another sign global powers are growing wary of the geopolitical risk to Taiwan.
But O’Donnell warned it would be premature to celebrate an end to the chip shortage or to the US’s reliance on Taiwanese chips. The factories themselves require equipment that’s in short supply because of — ironically enough — the chip shortage. And besides, those plants take years to build and get online.
“Once you stick a shovel in the ground, you’re not going to get chips for at least three years,” he said.
Plus, there remain obstacles to substantially decreasing the country’s reliance on TSMC. While the subsidies and tax breaks will help, Taiwan may continue to remain the cheaper option for businesses. And, for the time being at least, TSMC’s chips are likely to be higher quality as well. Given that TSMC is “really at the cutting edge,” Rasser said, the chips produced in the US by Intel, for instance, “wouldn’t be as sophisticated” as those made in Taiwan.
While producing even these lower-quality chips would go some way to reduce the US’s reliance on Taiwan, the US has a shortfall of the skilled workforce needed to ramp up production, a problem companies in this industry are facing across the globe. Rasser says enhanced training and education will be necessary to fill this gap.
It’s for these reasons that it could be “years and potentially decades” before the US will be able to declare independence on the chipmaking front.
“The CHIPS Act, it’s a good step in the right direction, but it’s just a little more than scratching the surface,” Rasser said.
In the meantime, the US may have to cross its fingers that an economy-shaking disruption doesn’t come to pass.
Liz Cheney ad calls out opponents’ stance on the ‘Big Lie’
Voters will decide the fates of two high-profile Republicans on Tuesday as primary elections occur in Alaska and Wyoming, two of the reddest states in the country.
In Wyoming, the vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, Liz Cheney, faces an effort by Donald Trump to punish her for disloyalty in the form of Harriet Hageman, her former staffer and current top rival.
Ms Cheney is deep underwater in the polls, and could lose tomorrow by more than 20 points by most indications. However, she has one trick up her sleeve: Democrats, who are rallying behind her in an attempt to block another 2020 electon conspiracist from office. Wyoming has closed primaries, but voters can change their registration on the day of voting.
Meanwhile in Alaska, the state’s former governor and right-wing provocateur Sarah Palin is seeking to make a political comeback after resigning her previous office under a cloud of ethics investigations. She trailed a fellow Republican, as well as one Democrat in the race, in a poll measuring her support levels last month. Alaska has ranked-choice voting, meaning that the candidates will have to contend with both Democratic and Republican voters deciding the outcome.
1660665601
What has Trump said about the Wyoming race?
In the race to unseat his arch-rival, Liz Cheney, former President Donald Trump enthusiastically gave his endorsement to her oponent Harriet Hageman.
“I strongly endorse Republican House of Representatives Candidate Harriet Hageman from Wyoming who is running against warmonger and disloyal Republican, Liz Cheney. Harriet is a fourth-generation daughter of Wyoming, a very successful attorney, and has the support and respect of a truly great U.S. Senator, Wyoming’s own Cynthia Lummis. Harriet Hageman adores the Great State of Wyoming, is strong on Crime and Borders, powerfully supports the Second Amendment, loves our Military and our Vets, and will fight for Election Integrity and Energy Independence (which Biden has already given up). Unlike RINO Liz Cheney, Harriet is all in for America First. Harriet has my Complete and Total Endorsement in replacing the Democrats number one provider of sound bites, Liz Cheney. Make America Great Again!”
Oliver O’Connell16 August 2022 17:00
1660663801
Voices: Murkowski will survive while Cheney falls – why?
Eric Garcia, The Independent’s Washington bureau chief, writes:
This evening, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska both face their primaries.
The two women’s political situations are strikingly similar. Both represent largely rural Republican states, and both hold seats once occupied by their fathers: Murkowski’s father Frank Murkowski selected her to replace him when he became governor, while Cheney was preceded by her father Dick, former House minority whip and later vice president, who occupied the seat throughout the 1980s.
Both have earned Donald Trump’s ire with their criticisms of him, too. Cheney was one of ten House Republicans who voted to convict Trump for his role in the January 6 riot, while Murkowski joined six other Republican senators to convict him.
But the parallels only go so far. Where Cheney will likely see her career in elected office come to an end, Murkowski is all but guaranteed to advance to the general election, despite the fact she has a Trump-backed primary challenger.
Lisa Murkowski will survive while Liz Cheney falls. Why?
Cheney has a staunchly conservative record, voting with Trump 93 per cent of the time; Murkowski, by contrast, crossed Trump far more times, sometimes controversially. What makes her so much safer?
Oliver O’Connell16 August 2022 16:30
1660662001
What do the polls say in Wyoming?
The Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center of the University of Wyoming conducted one of the most recent polls of the voter intentions in today’s Republican primary. Here is a summary of the findings of the survey:
Rep Liz Cheney of Wyoming
(Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
Wyoming Republican primary candidate Harriet Hageman is leading incumbent Liz Cheney by nearly 30 points in the primary race for Wyoming’s lone seat in the US House of Representatives, according to a new survey by the University of Wyoming’s Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center (WYSAC).
The survey was conducted July 25-August 6, yielding 562 responses from Wyoming residents identified as likely voters in the August 16 Republican Party primary. The margin of error for the primary survey is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Just over one-quarter, 28 per cent, of GOP primary voters support incumbent candidate Cheney, while 57 per cent support Hageman. Candidate Anthony Bouchard polled at 2 percent, while candidates Denton Knapp and Robyn Belinskey both polled below 1 per cent. Ten percent of likely GOP voters say they are still undecided.
“The race for the Republican nomination appears to be a referendum on Cheney, as it usually is when an incumbent seeks re-election,” says Jim King, professor of political science at UW.
Among survey respondents expecting to vote for Cheney, 66 percent indicated their vote was an expression of support for the incumbent congresswoman. In contrast, 29 per cent of respondents expecting to cast ballots for another candidate said they were supporting that candidate, while 41 per cent said their vote was in opposition to Cheney.
Oliver O’Connell16 August 2022 16:00
1660660437
Watch: Cheney’s closing argument campaign video
On Thursday, just days before Tuesday’s primary in Wyoming, congresswoman Liz Cheney released a closing plea to voters, as the anti-Trump Republican made a final case for casting a vote for her instead of her Trump-backed, election-denying opponent, Harriet Hageman.
“America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious — it preys on those who love their country,” Ms Cheney said in the video released Thursday. “It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.”
“This is Donald Trump’s legacy, but it cannot be the future of our nation.”
Watch the full video below:
Johanna Chisholm16 August 2022 15:33
1660658637
Palin, Murkowski highlight Alaska’s 2 elections on Tuesday
Alaska voters get their first shot at using ranked voting in a statewide race Tuesday in a special US House election in which Sarah Palin seeks a return to elected office.
Also, Republican US Sen Lisa Murkowski faces 18 challengers in a primary in which the top four vote-getters will advance to November’s general election.
The special election and regular primaries for US Senate, US House, governor and lieutenant governor and state legislative seats are on opposite sides of a two-sided ballot. It could take until 31 Aug to know the winner of the special election.
Read the full report from The Independent below:
Palin, Murkowski highlight Alaska’s 2 elections on Tuesday
The Alaska primary on Tuesday will feature two elections
Johanna Chisholm16 August 2022 15:03
1660656600
What to watch for in today’s primaries
Elections in Wyoming and Alaska on Tuesday could relaunch the political career of a former Republican star and effectively end the career of another — at least for now.
Here’s what to look out for:
What to watch: Cheney in trouble while Palin eyes comeback
Elections in Wyoming and Alaska on Tuesday could relaunch the political career of a former Republican star and effectively end the career of another
Oliver O’Connell16 August 2022 14:30
1660654968
Sarah Palin’s ex-in-laws have scheduled an election eve party for her opponent
Jim and Faye Palin, the ex-in-laws of Sarah Palin, have said that they’ll be hosting a party for the opponent, Nick Begich, of the former Alaska governor’s.
Mr Begich, who is running against Ms Palin for Alaska’s lone seat in the House, received Ms Palin’s former in-laws support months ago, after the two announced in a pair of Facebook posts that they’d be backing him and not their former daughter-in-law.
“We know many of our elected officials and candidates on a first name basis. It also makes it hard sometimes in picking who to vote for,” said Jim Palin in one of the posts shared on the Republican candidate’s Facebook page. “This election, Nick Begich is getting my vote.”
It was also revealed that the mother of Ms Palin’s ex, Todd Palin, contributed $250 on 19 May to Mr Begich’s campaign, Business Insider reported.
Johanna Chisholm16 August 2022 14:02
1660653000
Cheney and Murkowski: Trump critics facing divergent futures
They hail from their states’ most prominent Republican families. They have been among the GOP’s sharpest critics of former President Donald Trump. And after the Jan. 6 insurrection, they supported his impeachment.
But for all their similarities, the political fortunes of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming are poised to diverge on Tuesday when they’re each on the ballot in closely watched primary elections.
Cheney and Murkowski: Trump critics facing divergent futures
Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney hail from their states’ most prominent Republican families
Oliver O’Connell16 August 2022 13:30
1660649400
Giuliani told he’s a target of Georgia criminal election probe
Rudy Giuliani is a target of the criminal investigation being led by authorities in Georgia over the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The former New York City mayor and atttorney to Donald Trump was one of the top pushers of bogus conspiracies about the 2020 election and appeared before several panels of state lawmakers in Georgia to demand that they decertify the results showing Joe Biden the winner. Now, his actions could make him the first Trump associate to be criminally indicted for the scheme to thwart Mr Biden from becoming president.
Rudy Giuliani told he’s a target of Georgia criminal election probe, report says
Former Trump attorney had law licence suspended over election fraud conspiracies
Oliver O’Connell16 August 2022 12:30
1660647897
Political fates of Cheney and Murkowski in question solely for standing up to Trump, writes NYT editorial board
On Monday night, the New York Times Editorial Board published an op-ed that shone a light on two Republicans, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both of whom are facing primary challenges on Tuesday as they square up against opponents backed by former President Donald Trump.
“Indeed, their political fates are in question solely because they stood up to Mr. Trump when it would have been much safer and politically expedient not to,” writes the board.
The positions of Ms. Cheney and Ms. Murkowski stand in sharp relief to so many of this season’s Republican candidates, who are launching scorched-earth attacks on Democrats as “liars” even as they continue to promote Mr. Trump’s Big Lie.
Some MAGA Republicans like to pretend that they’re brave with shows of chest-beating, name-calling and machismo, and complaints about being persecuted by social media and the news media. But so much of this is political theater aimed at whipping up the Trump base, and none of it requires moral courage.
Violence, like the violence unleashed during the Jan. 6 attack, is an ever-present and growing response to political bravery in our democracy. It was there at the Capitol that day; it was there in the hate aimed at John Lewis and his fellow marchers in Selma; it was present in the alleged kidnapping plot aimed at Ms. Whitmer; and it is present in the stream of death threats endured by politicians in both parties whenever they cross a line.
The fate of Warner Bros.’ The Flash hangs in the balance as actor Ezra Miller continues to make headlines for their controversial behavior and various arrests. An outright shelving of the film is not off the table, though it would be a last resort.
Warners — and its new parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery — had hoped to avoid the line of fire, because its big-budget DC superhero tentpole isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until June 23, 2023. But the pressure is mounting by the day.
On Monday, the actor was charged with a felony burglary, and on Wednesday, Rolling Stone reported that Vermont’s child services department is attempting to locate a mother and three children who have allegedly been residing at Miller’s farm in the state.
A source with knowledge of the situation says the studio appears to be preparing for three possible scenarios.
First, Warners has received indications that the 29-year-old Miller, whose mother has accompanied the actor in recent days, will seek professional help after returning home to their farm in Vermont after being away. If that help happens, Miller, who goes by they/them pronouns, could give an interview at some point explaining their erratic behavior over the past few years. The actor could then do limited press for The Flash, and the movie would open in cinemas as planned.
The second scenario: Even if Miller doesn’t reach out for help, Warners could still release the film. But don’t expect Miller to play a prominent role in terms of marketing and publicity. Nor would Miller be The Flash going forward, as the role would be recast in future projects.
The third case: Things go from bad to worse, with the situation with Miller deteriorating. This would see Warners killing the movie outright, as it could not be reshot with a different actor. Miller plays multiple characters and is in almost every scene. Scrapping a $200 million film would be an unprecedented move.
All of this comes amid change at Warners. Earlier this month, newly minted Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav stunned Hollywood when shelving Batgirl, a $90 million movie made for HBO Max. Unlike The Flash, there was no individual controversy involved; rather Zaslav opted to take a tax write-down on the project and pivot away from making streaming films for DC.
Miller was cast as The Flash in 2014, the same year a solo The Flash film was announced. The development process has been long, with multiple directors coming and going over the years until It filmmaker Andy Muschietti finally got the project off the ground. The film also stars Michael Keaton, back as Batman for the first time in 30 years, and Ben Affleck as a different version of Batman.
Miller began their time as The Flash with cameos in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, both released in 2016, before having a main role in Justice League a year later.
The Flash is a key film for Warners, as it is expected to chart a new course for the DC Extended Universe. The film has been testing well, even as Miller’s legal woes continue to mount.
Earlier this week, word broke that they have been charged with felony burglary for allegedly stealing bottles of alcohol from a Vermont home. According to a police report posted online, Vermont State Police were notified May 1 of a potential burglary when residents on County Road in Stamford, Vermont, reported that “several bottles of alcohol were taken from within the residence while the homeowners were not present.” Following an investigation that included taking statements and reviewing surveillance videos, police found probable cause to charge Miller.
The latest charge comes after Miller was arrested in April in Hawaii and booked on suspicion of second-degree assault, per the Hawaii Island Police Department. The incident reportedly occurred when Miller was attending a get-together at a private residence and “became irate after being asked to leave and reportedly threw a chair, striking a 26-year-old female on the forehead,” per police.
That came on the heels of a March arrest on charges of disorderly conduct and harassment following an incident at a karaoke bar in Hilo, Hawaii.
At least one project has already distanced itself from Miller. On Tuesday, the Salvador Dali Biopic Daliland left Miller out of its press release in an announcement about its debut at the Toronto Film Festival. The actor plays a young version of the artist in the project, which stars Ben Kingsley as an older version.
Despite the arrests and headlines about Miller’s alleged behavior, Warner Bros. Discovery chief Zaslav said last week that the studio is committed to theatrical releases for a number of DC films including The Flash.
“We’ve seen them. We think they are terrific, and we think we can make them even better,” Zaslav said of DC’s upcoming slate, including The Flash.
CAA, which represents Miller, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
A new telescope image showcases two entangled galaxies that will eventually merge into one millions of years from now — and previews the eventual, similar fate of our own Milky Way galaxy.
The Gemini North telescope, located on the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii, spotted the interacting spiral galaxies about 60 million light-years away in the Virgo constellation.
The galactic pair NGC 4567 and NGC 4568, also known as the Butterfly galaxies, have just begun to collide as gravity pulls them together.
In 500 million years, the two cosmic systems will complete their merger to form a single elliptical galaxy.
At this early stage, the two galactic centers are currently 20,000 light-years apart and each galaxy has maintained its pinwheel shape. As the galaxies become more entangled, gravitational forces will lead to multiple events of intense star formation. The original structures of the galaxies will change and distort.
Over time, they will dance around each other in circles that become smaller and smaller. This tightly looped dance will pull and stretch out long streams of gas and stars, mixing the two galaxies together into something that resembles a sphere.
As millions of years pass, this galactic entanglement will consume or disperse the gas and dust needed to trigger star birth, causing stellar formation to slow and eventually cease.
Observations of other galactic collisions and computer modeling have provided astronomers with more evidence that mergers of spiral galaxies create elliptical galaxies.
Once the pair come together, the resulting formation may look more like elliptical galaxy Messier 89, also located in the Virgo constellation. Once Messier 89 lost most of the gas necessary to form stars, very little star birth occurred. Now, the galaxy is home to older stars and ancient clusters.
The afterglow of a supernova, first detected in 2020, is also visible in the new image as a bright spot in one of galaxy NGC 4568’s spiral arms.
Milky Way merger
A similar galactic merger will unfold when the Milky Way galaxy eventually collides with the Andromeda galaxy, our largest and nearest galactic neighbor. Astronomers at NASA used Hubble data in 2012 to predict when a head-on collision between the two spiral galaxies might occur. Estimates project that the event will happen in about 4 billion to 5 billion years.
Right now, a massive halo that surrounds the Andromeda galaxy is actually bumping up against the Milky Way galaxy’s halo, according to research based on Hubble Space Telescope data that published in 2020.
Andromeda’s halo, a large envelope of gas, extends out 1.3 million light-years from the galaxy, almost halfway to the Milky Way, and as much as 2 million light-years in other directions.
This neighbor, which likely contains as many as 1 trillion stars, is similar in size to our large galaxy, and it’s only 2.5 million light-years away. That may sound incredibly distant, but on an astronomical scale, that makes Andromeda so close that it’s visible in our autumn sky. You can see it as a fuzzy cigar-shaped bit of light, high in the sky during the fall.
And if we could see Andromeda’s massive halo, which is invisible to the naked eye, it would be three times the width of the Big Dipper constellation, which dwarfs anything else in our sky.
Scientists at NASA said it’s unlikely that our solar system will be destroyed when the Milky Way and Andromeda merge, but the sun might get kicked into a new region of the galaxy — and Earth’s night sky may have some new spectacular views.
The Gemini North telescope, located on the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii, spotted the interacting spiral galaxies about 60 million light-years away in the Virgo constellation.
The galactic pair NGC 4567 and NGC 4568, also known as the Butterfly galaxies, have just begun to collide as gravity pulls them together.
In 500 million years, the two cosmic systems will complete their merger to form a single elliptical galaxy.
At this early stage, the two galactic centers are currently 20,000 light-years apart and each galaxy has maintained its pinwheel shape. As the galaxies become more entangled, gravitational forces will lead to multiple events of intense star formation. The original structures of the galaxies will change and distort.
Over time, they will dance around each other in circles that become smaller and smaller. This tightly looped dance will pull and stretch out long streams of gas and stars, mixing the two galaxies together into something that resembles a sphere.
As millions of years pass, this galactic entanglement will consume or disperse the gas and dust needed to trigger star birth, causing stellar formation to slow and eventually cease.
Observations of other galactic collisions and computer modeling have provided astronomers with more evidence that mergers of spiral galaxies create elliptical galaxies.
Once the pair come together, the resulting formation may look more like elliptical galaxy Messier 89, also located in the Virgo constellation. Once Messier 89 lost most of the gas necessary to form stars, very little star birth occurred. Now, the galaxy is home to older stars and ancient clusters.
The afterglow of a supernova, first detected in 2020, isalso visible in the new image as a bright spot in one of galaxy NGC 4568’s spiral arms.
Milky Way merger
A similar galactic merger will unfold when the Milky Way galaxy eventually collides with the Andromeda galaxy, our largest and nearest galactic neighbor. Astronomers at NASA used Hubble data in 2012 to predict when a head-on collision between the two spiral galaxies might occur. Estimates project that the event will happen in about 4 billion to 5 billion years.
Right now, a massive halo that surrounds the Andromeda galaxy is actually bumping up against the Milky Way galaxy’s halo, according to research based on Hubble Space Telescope data that published in 2020.
Andromeda’s halo, a large envelope of gas, extends out 1.3 million light-years from the galaxy, almost halfway to the Milky Way, and as much as 2 million light-years in other directions.
This neighbor, which likely contains as many as 1 trillion stars, is similar in size to our large galaxy, and it’s only 2.5 million light-years away. That may sound incredibly distant, but on an astronomical scale, that makes Andromeda so close that it’s visible in our autumn sky. You can see it as a fuzzy cigar-shaped bit of light, high in the sky during the fall.
And if we could see Andromeda’s massive halo, which is invisible to the naked eye, it would be three times the width of the Big Dipper constellation, which dwarfs anything else in our sky.
Scientists at NASA said it’s unlikely that our solar system will be destroyed when the Milky Way and Andromeda merge, but the sun might get kicked into a new region of the galaxy — and Earth’s night sky may have some new spectacular views.
A depiction of Earth, first without an inner core; second, with an inner core beginning to grow, around 550 million years ago; third, with an outermost and innermost inner core, around 450 million years ago. University of Rochester researchers used paleomagnetism to determine these two key dates in the history of the inner core, which they believe restored the planet’s magnetic field just before the explosion of life on Earth. Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw
New paleomagnetic research suggests Earth’s solid inner core formed 550 million years ago and restored our planet’s magnetic field.
Swirling liquid iron in the Earth’s outer core, located approximately 1,800 miles beneath our feet, generates our planet’s protective magnetic field, called the magnetosphere. Although this magnetic field is invisible, it is vital for life on Earth’s surface. That’s because the magnetosphere shields the planet from solar wind—streams of radiation from the sun.
However, about 565 million years ago, the magnetic field’s strength dropped to 10 percent of its strength today. Then, mysteriously, the magnetic field bounced back, regaining its strength just before the Cambrian explosion of multicellular life on Earth.
What caused the magnetosphere to bounce back?
This rejuvenation happened within a few tens of millions of years according to new research from scientists at the University of Rochester. This is very rapid on geological timescales and coincided with the formation of Earth’s solid inner core, suggesting that the core is likely a direct cause.
“The inner core is tremendously important,” says John Tarduno, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and dean of research for Arts, Sciences & Engineering at Rochester. “Right before the inner core started to grow, the magnetic field was at the point of collapse, but as soon as the inner core started to grow, the field was regenerated.”
In the paper, published on July 19, 2022, in the journal Nature Communications, the scientists determined several key dates in the inner core’s history, including a more precise estimate of its age. The research provides new clues about the history and future evolution of Earth and how it became a habitable planet, as well as the evolution of other planets in the solar system.
Earth’s layers and structure.
Unlocking information in ancient rocks
Earth is made up of layers: the crust, where life exists; the mantle, Earth’s thickest layer; the molten outer core; and the solid inner core, which is, in turn, composed of an outermost inner core and an innermost inner core.
Earth’s magnetic field is generated in its outer core. Swirling liquid iron there causes electric currents, driving a phenomenon called the geodynamo that produces the magnetic field.
Because of the magnetic field’s relationship to Earth’s core, scientists have been attempting for decades to ascertain how Earth’s magnetic field and core have changed throughout our planet’s history. They cannot directly measure the magnetic field due to the location and extreme temperatures of materials in the core. Fortunately, minerals that rise to Earth’s surface contain tiny magnetic particles that lock in the direction and intensity of the magnetic field at the time the minerals cool and solidify from their molten state.
To better constrain the age and growth of the inner core, Tarduno and his team used a CO2 laser and the lab’s superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer to analyze feldspar crystals from the rock anorthosite. These crystals have minute magnetic needles within them that are “perfect magnetic recorders,” Tarduno says.
By studying the magnetism locked in ancient crystals—a field known as paleomagnetism—the researchers determined two new important dates in the history of the inner core:
550 million years ago: the time at which the magnetic field began to renew rapidly after a near collapse 15 million years before that. The researchers attribute the rapid renewal of the magnetic field to the formation of a solid inner core that recharged the molten outer core and restored the magnetic field’s strength.
450 million years ago: the time at which the growing inner core’s structure changed, marking the boundary between the innermost and outermost inner core. These changes in the inner core coincide with changes around the same time in the structure of the overlying mantel, due to plate tectonics on the surface.
“Because we constrained the inner core’s age more accurately, we could explore the fact that the present-day inner core is actually composed of two parts,” Tarduno says. “Plate tectonic movements on Earth’s surface indirectly affected the inner core, and the history of these movements is imprinted deep within Earth in the inner core’s structure.”
Avoiding a Mars-like fate
A better understanding of the dynamics and growth of the inner core and the magnetic field has important implications, not only in uncovering Earth’s past and predicting its future, but in unraveling the ways in which other planets might form magnetic shields and sustain the conditions necessary to harbor life.
Researchers believe that
“This research really highlights the need to have something like a growing inner core that sustains a magnetic field over the entire lifetime—many billions of years—of a planet.”
Reference: “Early Cambrian renewal of the geodynamo and the origin of inner core structure” by Tinghong Zhou, John A. Tarduno, Francis Nimmo, Rory D. Cottrell, Richard K. Bono, Mauricio Ibanez-Mejia, Wentao Huang, Matt Hamilton, Kenneth Kodama, Aleksey V. Smirnov, Ben Crummins and Frank Padgett III, 19 July 2022,
