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World

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine facing ‘grave hour,’ UN watchdog says

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi warned that parts of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant had been knocked out due to recent attacks, risking an “unacceptable” potential radiation leak.

“IAEA experts believe that there is no immediate threat to nuclear safety,” but “that could change at any moment,” Grossi said.

“Any military action jeopardizing nuclear safety, nuclear security, must stop immediately,” he added. “These military actions near to such a large nuclear facility could lead to very serious consequences.”

The Zaporizhzhia facility — the largest nuclear plant in Europe — occupies an extensive site on the Dnipro river near the Russian-occupied city of Enerhodar. It has continued operating at reduced capacity since Russian forces captured it early in March, with Ukrainian technicians remaining at work.

Russia and Ukraine have so far been unwilling to agree to an IAEA inspection of the plant and have accused each other of shelling the facility — action the IAEA has said breaches “indispensable nuclear safety and security pillars.”

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia on Thursday blamed Ukraine for the shelling and urged Kyiv’s supporters to stop attacks and prevent a disastrous radiation leak.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed the finger at Moscow, which he said was putting all of Europe in danger.

“Only the complete withdrawal of Russians from the territory of the Zaporizhzhia NPP and the restoration of Ukraine’s full control over the situation around the plant will guarantee the restoration of nuclear safety for all of Europe,” Zelensky said.

Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom said 10 shells landed near the complex on Thursday, preventing a shift handover.

“For the safety of nuclear workers, the buses with the personnel of the next shift were turned back to Enerhodar,” the agency said. “Until the situation finally normalizes, the workers of the previous shift will continue to work.”

Energoatom said radiation levels at the site remained normal, despite renewed attacks.

Several Western and Ukrainian officials believe that Russia is using the giant nuclear facility as a stronghold to shield their troops and mount attacks, because they assume Kyiv will not return fire and risk a crisis.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Moscow of using the plant to shield its forces, while Britain’s Defense Ministry said in a recent security assessment that Russia’s actions at the complex sabotage the safety of its operations.

The Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, said in late July that Russian forces had been observed using heavy weaponry near the plant because “they know very well that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not respond to these attacks, as they can damage the nuclear power plant.”

The US on Thursday backed Ukraine’s calls for a demilitarized zone around the facility, while at the UN, Bonnie Jenkins, US undersecretary for arms control and international affairs, said Russia is responsible for the “nuclear risks” at the plant.

She warned the UN Security Council that “the many consequences of this conflict, including the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, will only end when Russia ends its war.”

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres — who previously called shelling at the plant “suicidal” — on Thursday said in a statement he was “gravely concerned.”

“We must be clear that any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia or any other nuclear facilities in Ukraine, or anywhere else, could lead to catastrophic consequences not only for the immediate vicinity, but for the region and beyond,” he said.

CNN’s Sugham Pokharel, Jennifer Hansler, Tim Lister, Yulia Kesaieva and Tara John contributed to this report.

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Technology

Amazon’s new pitch: let Alexa speak as your relatives from beyond the grave

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At Amazon’s Re:Mars conference, Alexa’s senior vice-president Rohit Prasad exhibited a startling new voice assistant capability: the supposed ability to mimic voices. So far, there’s no timeline whatsoever as to when or if this feature will be released to the public.

Stranger still, Amazon framed this copycatting ability as a way to commemorate lost loved ones. It played a demonstration video in which Alexa read to a child in the voice of his recently deceased grandmother. Prasad stressed that the company was seeking ways to make AI as personal as possible. “While AI can’t eliminate that pain of loss, he said, “it can definitely make the memories last.” An Amazon spokesperson told Engadget that the new skill can create a synthetic voiceprint after being trained on as little as a minute of audio of the individual it’s supposed to be replicating.

Security experts have long held concerns that deep fake audio tools, which use text-to-speech technology to create synthetic voices, would pave the way for a flood of new scams. Voice cloning software has enabled a number of crimes, such as a 2020 incident in the United Arab Emirates where fraudsters fooled a bank manager into transferring $35 million after they impersonated a company director. But deep fake audio crimes are still relatively unusual, and the tools available to scammers are, for now, relatively primitive.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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US

House subpoenas its own, grave new norm after Jan. 6 attack

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Jan. 6 committee’s remarkable decision to subpoena House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other congressional Republicans over the insurrection at the Capitol is as rare as the deadly riot itself, deepening the acrimony and distrust among lawmakers and raising questions about what comes next.

The outcome is certain to reverberate beyond the immediate investigation of Donald Trump’s unfounded efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. Fuming Republicans vow to use the same tools, weaponizing congressional subpoena powers if they wrest control of the House in November’s midterm elections to go after Democrats, even at the highest levels in Congress.

“It’s setting a very jarring and dangerous precedent,” said Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan, who was among the handful of Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the insurrection.

On Friday, the subpoenas for McCarthy and the four other Republican lawmakers were served as the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is wrapping up its initial phase. Public hearings are expected to begin in June, and the panel is still determining whether to call Republican senators to testify.

While the summons for McCarthy and the other Republican lawmakers was not wholly unexpected, it amplified concerns over the new norm-setting in Congress.

McCarthy, in line to become House speaker, brushed past reporters Friday, declining to say whether he would comply with the committee’s summons for testimony. Asked repeatedly for comment, McCarthy was mum.

The other Republicans — Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania — have decried the investigation as illegitimate, and it is unclear whether any of them will comply. The four all had conversations with the Trump White House about challenging the election, and McCarthy tried unsuccessfully to convince Trump to call off the Capitol siege that day as rioters broke windows near his own office.

“They have a duty to testify,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

“I mean, we’re investigating an insurrection against the United States government,” Nadler said. “An insurrection. Treason.”

The next steps are highly uncertain as the House, with its Democratic majority, weighs whether to take the grave, if unlikely, action of holding its own colleagues in contempt of Congress by voting to send a criminal referral to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

While other lawmakers have voluntarily come forward to talk to the committee, a move to force the subpoenaed members to share information would be certain to become tangled in broader constitutional questions — among them, whether the executive branch should be intervening in the governance of the legislative branch that tends to make its own rules. Action would drag for months, or longer.

Instead, the House could take other actions, including a vote of public censure of McCarthy and the four GOP lawmakers, a referral to the Ethics Committee, the imposition of fines or even the stripping of their committee assignments.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to answer any questions Friday.

“I don’t talk about what happens in the Jan. 6 committee,” she said in the halls, deferring to the panel as she typically does.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the bipartisan Jan. 6 panel, said it has options after the five GOP lawmakers refused its request for voluntary interviews and now face the summons.

“Look, all we’re saying is, these are members of Congress who’ve taken an oath,” he said. “Our investigation indicated that January 6 did actually happen, and what people saw with their own eyes did, in fact, happen.”

It’s a volatile time for Congress, with an intensified political toxicity settling into a new normal since the Capitol insurrection left five dead. That included a Trump supporter shot by police and a police officer who died later after battling the mob.

The Capitol is slowly reopening to tourists this spring after being shuttered over security concerns and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, but unease remains. Tensions run high and at least one lawmaker on the panel, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a vocal Trump critic, is flanked daily by security guards, a jarring sign of how America has changed.

Trump’s influence over the Republican Party remains strong, leaving many GOP lawmakers unwilling to publicly accept Biden’s election victory, some promulgating their own false claims of a fraudulent 2020 election. Courts across the nation have rejected claims the election was rigged.

If Republicans win power this fall, they are almost certain to launch investigations into Biden, Jan. 6 and other topics, now armed with the tool of subpoenas for fellow lawmakers.

“It’s a race to the bottom, is what it is,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who won Trump’s endorsement last week for his own reelection, despite having sparred with him in the past.

“I mean, I hope when we get in power, we don’t do the same things that they’re doing,” he said. “But you know, turnabout is fair play.”

While Democratic leaders say they would happily testify if summoned by newly empowered Republicans next year, more rank-and-file lawmakers privately express unease with what comes next, worried about being drawn into the fray.

Congress issuing a subpoena to one of its own would be rare, but not a first.

The ethics committees have subpoenaed individual lawmakers over potential wrongdoing. That includes the Senate voting in 1993 to subpoena the diary of Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., during an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment. Facing expulsion, he resigned first.

But traditionally, congressional subpoenas are pointed outward. Shortly after the country’s founding the first congressional subpoena was issued not to a lawmaker but to a real estate speculator who tried to purchase what is now Michigan and attempted to bribe members of Congress, according to the House history website.

The Jan. 6 panel has wrestled privately for weeks over whether to subpoena fellow lawmakers, understanding the gravity of the action it would be taking.

Once the members of the committee made their choice to issue the subpoenas, Pelosi was informed of their decision.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the panel, suggested the decision was justified based on the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack.

“People have asked, ‘Does this set a precedent for the issuance of subpoenas for members of Congress in the future?’ If there are coups and insurrections, then I suppose that it does,” Raskin said.

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Business

U.S. Department of Labor Expresses ‘Grave Concerns’ Over Fidelity’s Proposed Bitcoin 401(k) Plans: Report

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The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is reportedly having “grave concerns” about Fidelity Investments’ recent decision to launch Bitcoin (BTC) 401(k) plans.

In a new Wall Street Journal (WSJ) interview, Acting Assistant Secretary of the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) Ali Khawar acknowledges crypto has intriguing use cases but says it needs “maturing” before people devote their retirement accounts to the sector.

The EBSA is the agency responsible for overseeing workplace retirement plans.

Asset managing giant Fidelity announced plans this week to launch digital asset accounts, enabling holders of 401(k) plans to invest in BTC if their employers let them.

Fidelity will reportedly allow a maximum BTC allocation of 20%. The Labor Department is specifically concerned with that percentage, according to a senior DOL official who spoke to the WSJ. Khawar says the department has scheduled a conversation with Fidelity to outline their concerns.

The asset manager tells the WSJ its new Bitcoin 401(k) plans represent “the firm’s continued commitment to evolving and broadening its digital assets offerings amidst steadily growing demand for digital assets across investor segments, and we believe that this technology and digital assets will represent a large part of the financial industry’s future.”

Fidelity’s move to allow employees to allocate Bitcoin to their retirement savings plans comes a little over a month since the EBSA urged providers of 401(k) plans to “exercise extreme care before including direct investment options in cryptocurrency.”

The EBSA cites crypto’s volatility, uncertain valuations and evolving regulatory environment as reasons for concern.

The agency also argues it is difficult for 401(k) plan participants to make informed decisions about the digital asset sector.

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World

Second mass grave found outside Mariupol: Live Russia-Ukraine updates

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As Russia shifts its focus to eastern Ukraine in an effort to control the Donbas region, more Western countries have pledged to send artillery to support Ukraine’s defense. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on international leaders to send more military aid, saying his country needs billions in assistance every month to offset economic losses since the start of Russia’s invasion, and hundreds of billions to rebuild its infrastructure.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron promised anti-tank missiles and howitzers. He told French newspaper Ouest France this week that France would continue to support Ukraine as much as it can without entering into direct conflict. 

Canada is pledging weapons to help Ukraine, and recently delivered four M-777 howitzers, CBC News reported Friday, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier this week he would send “heavy artillery.”

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden announced additional military aid for Ukraine on Thursday totaling about $800 million, matching the same amount designated last week. Zelenskyy said it was “just what we were waiting for.”

NEW PHASE OF WAR: What a new phase of war means for Ukrainians in the east

USA TODAY ON TELEGRAM: Join our new Russia-Ukraine war channel

Latest developments:

►The Pentagon says U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will convene a meeting next week in Germany of defense officials and military leaders from more than 20 countries to discuss Ukraine’s immediate and long-term defense needs.

►The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that one serviceman died, 27 more went missing and 396 were rescued after a fire on the storied Russian warship Moskva last week.

►The U.N.’s human rights office said its investigators had documented at least 50 civilian deaths, including by summary execution, in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

►Putin declared victory in Mariupol, but that’s far from the truth. The war in Ukraine is entering a “critical window” to set the stage for the war’s next phase, President Joe Biden said.

Modern-day political disinformation has roots in centuries-old Russian myth

Russian empress Catherine the Great ruled a vast empire and, over the years, conquered many new lands. 

She appointed her boyfriend, Grigory, to oversee one of those conquests – a place now called Ukraine. As time passed, he informed her the citizens were flourishing and happy. But, according to a version of the tale passed on for centuries, it was a lie.

In the legend, Catherine planned to visit and observe the thriving, joyful subjects. Fearful his deceit would be exposed and eager to please his beloved, Grigory instructed minions to build fake villages along the riverfront – freshly painted facades. 

To this day, people worldwide still refer to fake news and false fronts using his name: “Potemkin villages.” 

But history and politics are a tangle of lies and intrigue, especially in Russia, so there is a twist to this tale: There were no fake villages. Researchers say Grigory’s accomplishments in Ukraine were authentic, and popular claims to the contrary are fiction – a smear spewed by Russian rivals at the time and forever seared into belief and vernacular. 

“The very concept of ‘Potemkin village’ is a Potemkin village,” said Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of “Catherine the Great & Potemkin: Power Love & Russian Empire.”

While the legend may be bogus, historians believe the Crimea expedition and Potemkin’s fable remain at the heart of today’s conflict in Ukraine. Put simply, they contend, thousands have been killed and millions displaced in a war based on Putin’s misrepresentation of that history.  

– Dennis Wagner

Putin declared victory in Mariupol, but ‘no evidence’ fighting is over

After reducing Ukraine’s eastern port city of Mariupol to rubble, President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called the military campaign there a success, something he desperately needs as the war grinds into its third month.

It’s anything but.

Russia stopped short of routing hundreds of Ukrainian fighters from the strategic city’s giant steel plant. Ukraine and President Joe Biden rejected Putin’s claim of victory.

“There is no evidence yet that Mariupol has completely fallen,” Biden said after announcing a new round of military aid to Ukraine, raising the total U.S. assistance to about $3.4 billion since Putin invaded Ukraine.

“We’re in a critical window now of time where they’re going to set the stage for the next phase of this war,” Biden said.

What is clear is that Mariupol’s residents have endured some of the worst atrocities committed by the Russians even as Russia lost about a quarter of its combat forces in Ukraine – troops, aircraft, tanks, ships and other equipment – since the war began Feb. 24.

– Maureen Groppe, Tom Vanden Brook

OUTLOOK ON WAR: Putin claims a win in Mariupol. What does that mean in a war in Ukraine that Russia is losing?

More than 240 cultural heritage sites, from churches to theaters, have been damaged by Russian forces, Ukraine’s cultural ministry said Saturday. 

Some 242 attacks on Ukrainian cultural sites have been recorded in 11 regions of the nation, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy. The Kharkiv region took the brunt of the damage, with 84 recorded attacks, followed by Donetsk and Kyiv.

More than 90 religious buildings were destroyed or damaged, including churches, mosques and synagogues. Other sites damaged or destroyed include 29 memorials to honor historical figures and events, 19 museums and 33 historical cultural buildings, like theaters and museums. 

Ukraine’s cultural ministry described the attacks as “war crimes,” citing the 1954 Hague Convention which established global commitment to the protection of cultural heritage during armed conflicts.

“We document each episode and form a detailed basis for the Russian army’s atrocities against cultural heritage,” Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s minister of culture and information policy, said in a statement. “All materials will be used as evidence in criminal cases against war criminals. 

“The aggressor will not be able to break the Ukrainian spirit,” Tkachenko said.

– Ella Lee

The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that one serviceman is dead, 27 are missing and 396 were rescued after a fire on the flagship missile cruiser Moskva last week

The statement comes a week after the vessel sank. The Pentagon couldn’t confirm the source of the ship’s damage, but Odesa Gov. Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces struck the guided-missile cruiser with two missiles, USA TODAY previously reported. 

Shortly after the incident, the ministry said the entire crew of the ship, which was presumed by the media to be about 500 people, had been rescued. The ministry did not offer an explanation for the contradicting reports.

The sinking of the storied Russian warship Moskva, whose history goes back to days of the Cold War, was a blow to Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine and symbolic defeat for Russia.

– Ella Lee, Associated Press

A second mass grave was found outside the besieged port city Mariupol, its city council said Friday. The council shared a satellite photo by Planet Labs to Telegram of what it described as a mass grave in the village of Vynohradne, which is east of Mariupol.

The grave is at least 45 meters by 25 meters, or about 147 feet by 82 feet, and could hold the bodies of at least 1,000 Mariupol residents, the city officials said.

“We will see more and more such graves,” Mariupol mayor Vadim Boychenko said in the statement. “This is the greatest genocide in Europe since the Holocaust.”

Earlier this week, satellite photos from Maxar Technologies revealed what appeared to be rows upon rows of more than 200 freshly dug mass graves in the town of Manhush, located to the west of Mariupol. The mayor and city council said that site may hold as many as 9,000 civilians. The discovery of mass graves has led to accusations that the Russians are trying to conceal the slaughter of civilians in the city.

– Ella Lee, Jeanine Santucci and Associated Press

MASS BURIAL DISCOVERED: Russians accused of burying 9,000 civilians in mass grave near Mariupol: April 21 recap

At least three civilians died and seven more were injured in shelling attacks in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Friday, as Russian forces continue to roll into the country’s industrial east, the governor of the region said in a Telegram post.

Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko blamed the deaths of “three more peaceful residents” in a small town and two villages on Russian shelling.

Also on Friday, the local prosecutor’s office in the northeastern region of Kharkiv said that charred bodies of two residents were discovered near the city of Izyum that same day. The post accused Russian soldiers of torturing the residents and burning their bodies.

Humanitarian corridors deemed unsafe

A top Ukrainian official said humanitarian corridors would not be open Friday because they were not safe. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk asked people awaiting evacuation from war zones to “be patient” and “hang in there.”

Vereshchuk said Russian forces offered to open a corridor for military surrender but not for an estimated 1,000 civilians sheltering at a steel mill that is the last Ukrainian stronghold in besieged southern city of Mariupol.

Corridors were closed to Ukrainians hoping to evacuate for several days over the last week. Humanitarian corridors, agreed-upon zones of ceasefire to allow civilians safe passage, have been lifelines for many people still in areas of heavy fighting. But Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of ignoring the agreed-upon corridors and continuing dangerous shelling along the routes. 

Contributing: The Associated Press

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World

Battle looms in Ukraine’s east, grave found in town near Kyiv

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  • Civilian grave found near Kyiv, official says
  • Zelenskiy urges oil embargo, seeks arms
  • Johnson promises vehicles, anti-ship missiles
  • Nine trains laid on for evacuation in east, governor says

BUZOVA, Ukraine, April 10 (Reuters) – A grave with at least two civilian bodies has been found in Buzova village near Kyiv, a Ukrainian official said, the latest reported grave discovered after Russian forces withdrew from areas north of the capital to focus their assault on the east.

Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova, told Ukrainian television earlier that a grave with dozens of bodies had been found in a ditch near a petrol station.

“Right now, as we are speaking, we are digging out two bodies of villagers, who were killed. Other details I cannot disclose,” Didych told Reuters by telephone.

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“There are other people who we cannot find. They could be in different places, but this doesn’t lessen the pain of the loss of loved ones.”

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the report.

Mounting civilian casualties have triggered widespread international condemnation and new sanctions, in particular over hundreds of deaths in the town of Bucha, to the northwest of Kyiv that until just over a week ago was occupied by Russian forces.

Moscow has rejected accusations of war crimes by Ukraine and Western countries. It has denied targeting civilians in what it calls a “special operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” its southern neighbour. Ukraine and Western nations have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for war.

Russia has failed to take any major cities since invading on Feb. 24 but Ukraine says Russia is gathering its forces in the east for a major assault and has urged people to flee.

Russia is seeking to establish a land corridor from Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and the eastern Donbas region, which is partly held by Moscow-backed separatists, Britain’s defence ministry said.

Russian armed forces are also looking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, it said in a regular intelligence update on Sunday.

Satellite images released by private U.S. firm Maxar dated April 8 showed armoured vehicles and trucks in a military convoy moving south toward Donbas through a town some 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Kharkiv.

Some cities in the east are under heavy shelling with tens of thousands of people unable to evacuate.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an address late on Saturday Russia’s use of force was “a catastrophe that will inevitably hit everyone.”

Natalia Titova, 62, reacts as she shows her house, which was destroyed by Russian shelling, amid Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine in Chernihiv, Ukraine April 9, 2022. Natalia and her family were staying in the basement, “When the rocket hit our house, we ran into the street, it was very scary” she said. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

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Ukraine was ready to fight for victory while looking for a diplomatic end to the war, he said, and renewed his appeal to Western allies for a total ban on Russian energy products and more weapons for Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Saturday and pledged armoured vehicles and anti-ship missile systems, alongside support for World Bank loans and Britain’s commitment to move away from using Russian fossil fuels. read more

The European Union, which on Friday banned Russian coal imports among other products, has yet to touch oil and gas imports from Russia. read more

Ukraine itself late on Saturday announced a full ban on imports from Russia, its key trading partner before the war with some $6 billion in annual imports.

“The enemy’s budget will not receive these funds, which will reduce its potential to finance the war,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on Facebook.

Johnson was the latest foreign leader to visit Kyiv after Russian forces pulled back from the area, marking a return to some degree of normality for the capital. Italy said it planned to re-open its embassy this month.

NINE TRAINS

But in the east, calls by Ukrainian officials for civilians to flee gained more urgency after a missile struck a train station in the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, packed with women, children and the elderly trying to get out.

Ukrainian officials said more than 50 people were killed in Friday’s strike.

Russia has denied responsibility, saying the missiles used in the attack were only used by Ukraine’s military. The United States says it believes Russian forces were responsible.

Reuters was unable to verify the details of attack.

Residents of the region of Luhansk would have nine trains on Sunday to get out on, the region’s governor, Serhiy Gaidai, wrote on the Telegram message service.

Russia’s invasion has forced about a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes, with more than 4 million fleeing abroad, turned cities into rubble and killed or injured thousands.

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Reporting by Reuters bureaus
Writing by Michael Perry and Tomasz Janowski
Editing by Robert Birsel and Frances Kerry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Science

‘Dead’ telescope discovers Jupiter’s twin from beyond the grave

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The exoplanet, discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, officially designated K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb. (Image credit: D. Specht et al, Kepler K2 )

NASA’s Kepler space telescope has spotted a Jupiter look-alike in a new discovery, even though the instrument stopped operations four years ago. 

An international team of astrophysicists using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which ceased operations in 2018, have discovered an exoplanet similar to Jupiter located 17,000 light-years from Earth, making it the farthest exoplanet ever found by Kepler. The exoplanet, officially designated K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb, was spotted in data captured by Kepler in 2016. Throughout its lifetime, Kepler observed over 2,700 now-confirmed planets. 

“Kepler was also able to observe uninterrupted by weather or daylight, allowing us to determine precisely the mass of the exoplanet and its orbital distance from its host star,” Eamonn Kerins, an astronomer at the University of Manchester in the U.K., said in a statement. “It is basically Jupiter’s identical twin in terms of its mass and its position from its sun, which is about 60% of the mass of our own sun,” 

Related: Never-before-seen rocks found in these exoplanet graveyards

The team, led by David Specht, a Ph.D. student at the University of Manchester, took advantage of a phenomenon known as gravitational microlensing to spot the exoplanet. With this phenomenon, which was predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, objects in space can be seen and studied closer when the light from a background star is warped and thus magnified by the gravity of a closer massive object. 

In hopes of using the warped light from a far-off star to detect an exoplanet, the team used three months of observations that Kepler made of the stretch of sky where this planet lies. 

“To see the effect at all requires almost perfect alignment between the foreground planetary system and a background star,” Kerins added in the same statement. “The chance that a background star is affected this way by a planet is tens to hundreds of millions to one against. But there are hundreds of millions of stars towards the center of our galaxy. So Kepler just sat and watched them for three months.”

The team then worked with Iain McDonald, another astronomer at the University of Manchester who developed a new search algorithm. Together, they were able to reveal five candidates in the data, with one most clearly showing signs of an exoplanet. Other ground-based observations of the same stretch of sky corroborated the same signals that Kepler saw of the possible exoplanet. 

“The difference in vantage point between Kepler and observers here on Earth allowed us to triangulate where along our sight line the planetary system is located,” Kerins said.

Aside from the excitement of discovering an exoplanet with an instrument no longer even in service, the team’s work is notable because Kepler was not designed to discover exoplanets using this phenomenon. It is important to note, however, that, in 2016, Kepler’s mission was extended. In 2013, after two reaction wheel failures, it was proposed that Kepler be used for a K2 “second light” mission that would see the scope detecting potentially habitable exoplanets. This extension was approved in 2014 and the mission was extended way past the scope’s expected end date until it eventually ran out of fuel on Oct. 30, 2018. 

“Kepler was never designed to find planets using microlensing so, in many ways, it’s amazing that it has done so,” Kerins said, adding that upcoming instruments like NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission, could be capable of using microlensing to study exoplanets and will be able to further such research. 

“Roman and Euclid, on the other hand, will be optimized for this kind of work. They will be able to complete the planet census started by Kepler,” Kerins said. “We’ll learn how typical the architecture of our own solar system is. The data will also allow us to test our ideas of how planets form. This is the start of a new exciting chapter in our search for other worlds.”

This discovery was described in a study posted March 31 to the preprint server ArXiv.org and has been submitted for publication in the journal the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.



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Science

‘Dead’ telescope discovers Jupiter’s twin from beyond the grave

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The exoplanet, discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, officially designated K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb. (Image credit: D. Specht et al, Kepler K2 )

NASA’s Kepler space telescope has spotted a Jupiter look-alike in a new discovery, even though the instrument stopped operations four years ago. 

An international team of astrophysicists using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which ceased operations in 2018, have discovered an exoplanet similar to Jupiter located 17,000 light-years from Earth, making it the farthest exoplanet ever found by Kepler. The exoplanet, officially designated K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb, was spotted in data captured by Kepler in 2016. Throughout its lifetime, Kepler observed over 2,700 now-confirmed planets. 

“Kepler was also able to observe uninterrupted by weather or daylight, allowing us to determine precisely the mass of the exoplanet and its orbital distance from its host star,” Eamonn Kerins, an astronomer at the University of Manchester in the U.K., said in a statement. “It is basically Jupiter’s identical twin in terms of its mass and its position from its sun, which is about 60% of the mass of our own sun,” 

Related: The strangest alien planets (gallery)

The team, led by David Specht, a Ph.D. student at the University of Manchester, took advantage of a phenomenon known as gravitational microlensing to spot the exoplanet. With this phenomenon, which was predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, objects in space can be seen and studied closer when the light from a background star is warped and thus magnified by the gravity of a closer massive object. 

In hopes of using the warped light from a far-off star to detect an exoplanet, the team used three months of observations that Kepler made of the stretch of sky where this planet lies. 

“To see the effect at all requires almost perfect alignment between the foreground planetary system and a background star,” Kerins added in the same statement. “The chance that a background star is affected this way by a planet is tens to hundreds of millions to one against. But there are hundreds of millions of stars towards the center of our galaxy. So Kepler just sat and watched them for three months.”

The team then worked with Iain McDonald, another astronomer at the University of Manchester who developed a new search algorithm. Together, they were able to reveal five candidates in the data, with one most clearly showing signs of an exoplanet. Other ground-based observations of the same stretch of sky corroborated the same signals that Kepler saw of the possible exoplanet. 

“The difference in vantage point between Kepler and observers here on Earth allowed us to triangulate where along our sight line the planetary system is located,” Kerins said.

Aside from the excitement of discovering an exoplanet with an instrument no longer even in service, the team’s work is notable because Kepler was not designed to discover exoplanets using this phenomenon. It is important to note, however, that, in 2016, Kepler’s mission was extended. In 2013, after two reaction wheel failures, it was proposed that Kepler be used for a K2 “second light” mission that would see the scope detecting potentially habitable exoplanets. This extension was approved in 2014 and the mission was extended way past the scope’s expected end date until it eventually ran out of fuel on Oct. 30, 2018. 

“Kepler was never designed to find planets using microlensing so, in many ways, it’s amazing that it has done so,” Kerins said, adding that upcoming instruments like NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission, could be capable of using microlensing to study exoplanets and will be able to further such research. 

“Roman and Euclid, on the other hand, will be optimized for this kind of work. They will be able to complete the planet census started by Kepler,” Kerins said. “We’ll learn how typical the architecture of our own solar system is. The data will also allow us to test our ideas of how planets form. This is the start of a new exciting chapter in our search for other worlds.”

This discovery was described in a study posted March 31 to the preprint server ArXiv.org and has been submitted for publication in the journal the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.



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World

At a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, the horrors of Putin’s invasion are increasingly coming to light

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“Brother, we’ve been looking for you for so long,” he says, bursting into tears halfway through. His brother, Dmitry, has been missing for roughly a week and neighbors told Vladimir he might be buried here.

“We thought you were alive,” Vladimir cries out.

Inside the grave, the bodies are piled on top of one another, mostly inside black bags but some with limbs protruding from the soil. Only some are interred. A CNN team saw at least a dozen bodies on the mass grave, but the earth shows signs of recent movement, suggesting many more could lie beneath.

Kyiv Regional Police and local residents say they believe at least 150 people were buried in the mass grave, but the mayor of Bucha says the death toll could be as high as 300. CNN could not independently verify their claims.

Vladimir gathers himself, comforted by his wife, Anna, and a neighbour, Liubov, and leaves. He says he believes his brother is buried there, but the sad reality is he cannot know for sure — and might not for a very long time as the town was only liberated from Russian forces over the weekend.

Residents say the grave, on the grounds behind the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints, started being dug early in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, such was the death toll in this leafy suburb of Kyiv.
Satellite images from Maxar going back to March 10 show the trench already being dug.

As Russian forces retreat from the area around Kyiv, the horrors of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine are increasingly coming to light. The death and destruction brought by Russia’s war machine are on full display in Bucha, once an up-and-coming area on Kyiv’s outskirts for young couples looking for relatively new housing developments, large lawns and good schools.

But the invasion changed everything and artillery strikes have taken chunks out of Bucha’s homes.

One tree-lined road in the town is now littered with the warped remnants of a Russian convoy that was ambushed by Ukrainian forces.

Most disturbingly, the Russian retreat has revealed at least 20 bodies lining a single street on Saturday.

Some had their hands tied behind their backs, others lay crumpled under their bicycles, in what officials have described as an execution by the Russian occupiers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed Russia for the killings and called on Moscow to put an end to the “war crimes.”

“For these murders, for these tortures, for these arms torn off by explosions that lie on the streets. For shots in the back of the head of tied people. This is how the Russian state will now be perceived. This is your image,” Zelensky said in a Sunday video address.

For its part, Russia has denied any involvement, maintaining it doesn’t target civilians and saying the images of bodies on the streets of Bucha are fake.
Inside the district, the roads are littered with destroyed Russian armored vehicles — including tanks — ambushed by Ukrainian drones or units with NATO-supplied hand-held rocket launchers such as Javelins and Next-Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapons Systems, or NLAWs.

In some cases, entire columns of Russian armored vehicles were trapped on narrow residential roads before being destroyed.

“They thought they could just drive on the streets and go through. That they would be greeted as though it’s alright to come here,” Valery Spichek, an officer with the Ukrainian National Police, tells us. “Maybe they think it is normal to drive around looting, to destroy buildings and to mock people.”

“But our people didn’t allow it,” he adds.

The vehicles are now rusting away where they stopped, evidence of the heavy losses Moscow suffered before being driven out of the area around Kyiv.

The destruction extends to most buildings and other infrastructure around, with very few houses left intact, a majority unlivable after Russia’s offensive on the capital.

The scene in Bucha is similar to what CNN was able to see in other districts around Kyiv, such as Irpin, Myla, Hostomel and as far north as Bordyanka.

In the latter, entire multistory buildings were razed by artillery shells as Ukrainians and Russians battled for control of the area. Authorities say they fear dead bodies are lying underneath the rubble, and that the real death toll is still impossible to measure.

Konstantin Momotov, 69, chose to stay Bucha to look after his two dogs. “Troops with the letter V, that means ‘east,’ arrived here. There were a lot of them. They began to shoot with anti-aircraft guns to intimidate. It was on the third day of the war,” he told CNN.

They killed his young neighbor, he said, but Momotov insisted that he was not afraid. “I’m already old (and) I have sent my children to Poland.”

Despite the carnage, residents who survived the horrors are picking up their lives again. People attempted to do their grocery shopping on Sunday as the news of the alleged atrocities spread across the globe.

Western and Ukrainian officials are calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate the apparent killing of civilians in Bucha despite Russia’s denials.

In the town itself, grief is turning into deafening anger. Looking to the sky, Vladimir’s neighbor Liubov addresses Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

“Why do you hate us so much? Since the 1930s, you have been abusing Ukraine. You just wanted to destroy us, wanted us gone. But … everything will be okay. I believe it,” she said.

CNN’s Tara John contributed to this piece.

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Here’s what a CNN team on the scene of a mass grave in the Ukrainian town of Bucha saw 

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks from Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, April 2. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP)

“This is genocide,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, speaking after images emerged of civilian bodies strewn across the streets of Bucha, northwest of the capital of Kyiv, following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the area.

When asked during an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program if Russia is carrying out genocide in Ukraine, Zelensky replied: “Indeed. This is genocide.”

 “The elimination of the whole nation, and the people. We are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities,” he continued. 

Ukraine doesn’t want to be “subdued to the policy of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said, adding that this “is the reason we are being destroyed and exterminated.”

“This is happening in the Europe of the 21st century. So, this is the torture of the whole nation,” the president stressed to viewers. 

The alleged atrocities in Bucha have drawn international outrage, with Western leaders calling for war crimes investigations and fresh sanctions on Russia.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that the State Department would help document any atrocities the Russian military committed against Ukrainian civilians. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the deaths of civilians in Bucha a “brutality” and said “I strongly welcome” an investigation by International Criminal Court, which has opened an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine.

Russia’s response: The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed the extensive footage was “fake,” saying “not a single local resident suffered from any violent actions,” during Russia’s occupation of Bucha. “In the settlements of the Kiev region, Russian military personnel delivered and issued 452 tons of humanitarian aid to civilians,” it said in a statement.

A separate statement claimed the footage was staged. “Stories about Bucha appeared in several foreign media outlets at once, which looks like a planned media campaign,” the statement said. “Taking into account that the troops left the city on March 30, where was the footage for four days? Their absence only confirms the fake.”

The Russian government has consistently responded to allegations of civilian casualties inflicted by Russian forces with blanket denials. After the Russian air force bombed a maternity hospital on March 9, Russian officials attempted to cast doubt on widespread media reports, with one Russian diplomat accusing a victim of the bombing — a woman who escaped from the bombing, bloodied and still pregnant — of being an actor and not a real victim.

CNN has not been able to independently confirm the details around the men’s deaths. CNN had requested comment from the Russian defense ministry regarding allegations of the execution of civilians in the Kyiv region and other parts of Ukraine.

CNN’s Nathan Hodge, Chandelis Duster and Jeremy Herb contributed reporting to this post.

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