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Canadian court decides class-action lawsuit against Fortnite can proceed
A Canadian court has approved a class-action lawsuit against the creators of Fortnite, Epic Games.
We first reported that the Canadian legal firm was preparing a class-action lawsuit against Epic Games back in 2019. It accused the developer of “knowingly” creating the “very, very addictive game”, Fortnite, but had been in limbo ever since as the court assessed whether or not the case could proceed.
Now, however, it seems the court agrees with the plaintiff that the claim “does not appear to be frivolous or manifestly ill-founded” and, according to CTV News, just because there’s “no certainty” that Epic created an “addictive” game it “does not preclude the possibility that the game is in fact addictive and that its creator and distributor are presumed to know this”.
“Epic Games, when they created Fortnite, for years and years, hired psychologists – they really dug into the human brain and they really made the effort to make it as addictive as possible,” Alessandra Esposito Chartrand, an attorney with Calex Légal, said at the time. “They knowingly put on the market a very, very addictive game which was also geared toward youth.”
Likening the case to the 2015 class-action suit against tobacco companies that saw the Quebec Superior Court ruling determine tobacco companies didn’t do enough to warn their customers about the dangers of smoking, Chartrand believes Epic knew Fortnite was “as addictive as possible” and failed in their duty to warn players of the risk of addiction. Consequently, the legal challenge is “very centred on the duty to inform”.
The legal notice – which was initially filed on behalf of the parents of two minors, who had been aged 10 and 15 at the time, although other parents have since joined the lawsuit – also drew on the decision of the World Health Organisation to list gaming disorder as a disease.
“In our case, the two parents that came forward and told [us], ‘If we knew it was so addictive it would ruin our child’s life, we would never have let them start playing Fortnite or we would have monitored it a lot more closely’,” Chartrand added.
To play the game, users must surrender their right to sue the company as part of its terms of use and instead go through individual arbitration, but Chartrand believes the terms of service “don’t stand up in court in Quebec because the province’s Consumer Protection Act requires companies to clearly disclose risks associated with products or services”.
“The Court is of the opinion that the facts alleged with respect to the plaintiffs’ children make it possible to claim, if we put them in relation to the statements of certain experts with respect to the creation of an addiction to video games, and more particularly to Fortnite, that the plaintiffs have a valid product liability claim against the defendants,” the recent ruling states. “The claim does not appear to be frivolous or manifestly ill-founded.”
“There’s something about Fortnite that is completely unique. There are no other games that have therapy centres dedicated to players of that game,” Chartrand says.
Epic has 30 days to appeal the judgement.
“We have industry-leading Parental Controls that empower parents to supervise their child’s digital experience,” Epic spokesperson Natalie Munoz told PC Gamer. “Parents can receive playtime reports that track the amount of time their child plays each week, and require parental permission before purchases are made, so that they can make the decisions that are right for their family. We have also recently added a daily spending limit by default for players under the age of 13.
“We plan to fight this in court. This recent decision only allows the case to proceed. We believe the evidence will show that this case is meritless.”
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Trump criminal probes will proceed — even as he’s candidate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s early announcement of his third White House bid won’t shield the former president from the criminal investigations already confronting him as an ordinary citizen, leaving him legally and politically exposed as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination.
The Justice Department is pushing ahead with its probes. And with the midterm elections now mostly complete and the 2024 presidential campaign months away from beginning in earnest, federal prosecutors have plenty of time to continue their work even as Trump hits the campaign trail.
“I don’t think the department is going to hesitate as a result of Trump nominating himself and anointing himself as the first candidate in the 2024 election,” said former Justice Department prosecutor Michael Weinstein. “I just think they will see that as him trying to game the system as he’s done very successfully in the courts,” and they’re prepared for his “blowback.”
Trump enters the race facing federal investigations related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and into the hoarding of top-secret government documents at his Florida estate — plus a separate s tate probe in Georgia. The Mar-a-Lago investigation has advanced especially swiftly, with prosecutors this month giving a close Trump ally immunity to secure his testimony before a federal grand jury. Justice Department lawyers in that probe say they have amassed evidence of potential crimes involving not only obstruction but also the willful retention of national defense information.
It remains unclear if anyone will be charged, as does the timetable for a decision. But former officials say the best way to ensure the outcome is seen as above reproach is to conduct a by-the-book investigation showing no special favor or ill treatment because of Trump’s former high office.
“The public will have the most faith in what you’re doing, and you will get the most successful results, if you treat Donald Trump like any other American,” said Matthew Miller, who served as Justice Department spokesman under former Attorney General Eric Holder.
Current Attorney General Merrick Garland has suggested as much, saying last summer in response to questions about Trump and the Jan. 6 investigation that “no person is above the law.” Asked in a July television interview how a potential Trump candidacy might affect the department, Garland replied: “We will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer — legitimate, lawful transfer — of power from one administration to the next.”
Investigating any elected official, or candidate for office, almost always invites political speculation. Justice Department protocol cautions prosecutors against taking overt action in the direct run-up to an election, but that’s more a standard convention than a hard-and-fast rule. And the 2024 presidential contest is two years away.
Still, it’s not easy to investigate a former president or current candidate. That’s especially true in the case of Trump, who spent his presidency assailing his own Justice Department and haranguing attorneys general he himself had appointed. He has already lambasted the FBI for searching Mar-a-Lago in August, using the episode to raise funds from supporters.
Now, with his candidacy official, he and his supporters will try to reframe the narrative of the investigation as political persecution by a Democratic administration that fears him for 2024.
In fact, one risk for Democrats is that Trump — who during his announcement Tuesday declared himself “a victim” — could galvanize his supporters anew with that argument. On the other hand, the results of last week’s midterm elections suggest he may be more politically vulnerable than many had thought, including in his Republican Party.
What about past investigations of a presidential candidate? There is a recent precedent, though under different circumstances.
In 2016, the Obama administration’s Justice Department investigated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Despite the efforts of the law enforcement officials who worked the investigation to remain above the fray, the probe became repeatedly mired in presidential politics — in ways that may not have been foreseen when it began.
Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch expressed regret over a chance encounter she had with Bill Clinton in the final days of the investigation. Former FBI Director James Comey was blamed for harming Clinton’s candidacy by making a detailed public explanation of why the bureau was not recommending charges and then for reopening the probe 11 days before the election.
David Laufman, who supervised that investigation for the Justice Department as chief of the same section now running the Mar-a-Lago probe, said there’s a “surreal disconnect” between the political maelstrom that accompanies politically freighted investigations and the heads-down mentality of a prosecutor determined to just do the work.
“Here we were, conducting a criminal investigation with national security undertones in a way that was practically splashed on the front page of every newspaper every fricking day,” Laufman said. “And all we could do was to continue to do what we knew had to be done — to obtain all the relevant facts needed to make judgments about whether it was appropriate to recommend criminal charges.”
He said he believed the investigators working Mar-a-Lago have been the same way, praising their professionalism amid pressure from the public and even concerns about their personal safety.
In the Clinton case, Comey has said he considered recommending a separate special counsel to direct the investigation, though he ultimately did not. The option of a specially appointed prosecutor who would report to Garland exists here as well, just as the Trump-era Justice Department appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation into potential coordination between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
It’s not clear how seriously Garland would consider that. A department spokesman declined to comment.
Politics aside, in making the decision whether to bring an indictment, much will ultimately depend on the strength of the Justice Department’s case.
“If the government’s case is exceptionally strong, I think the rule of law will have a predominant weight in the attorney general’s calculus,” Laufman said.
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3M combat earplug lawsuits to proceed, judge rules, despite bankruptcy case
The logo of Down Jones Industrial Average stock market index listed company 3M is shown in Irvine, California April 13, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake
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Aug 26 (Reuters) – 3M Co must face more than 230,000 lawsuits accusing it of selling defective earplugs to the U.S. military, after a U.S. judge on Friday ruled that the bankruptcy of a subsidiary did not stop lawsuits against the non-bankrupt parent company.
Companies that file for bankruptcy typically receive an immediate reprieve from lawsuits, and 3M subsidiary Aearo Technologies LLC argued that extending those protections to 3M would buy Aearo time to address its debts and restructuring goals.
Aearo and 3M had argued that bankruptcy offered a faster and fairer way to compensate veterans who say that earplugs made by Aearo caused hearing loss.
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But bankruptcy Judge Jeffrey J. Graham in Indianapolis said that Aearo’s bankruptcy restructuring could proceed in parallel with the lawsuits.
While the “sheer size” of the consolidated litigation may have spurred 3M and Aearo to seek “additional leverage” through the bankruptcy proceedings, that did not create a legal need to protect 3M, Graham ruled.
Attorneys representing the veterans with hearing loss said they looked forward to continuing their lawsuits against 3M in other courts.
“Judge Graham’s decision is a complete rejection of 3M’s attempt to evade accountability and hide in bankruptcy,” plaintiff attorneys Bryan Aylstock and Christopher Seeger said in a statement.
A spokesman for 3M said it intended to appeal.
“Continuing to litigate these cases one-by-one over the coming years will not provide certainty or fairness for any party,” 3M spokesman Sean Lynch said.
3M subsidiary Aearo Technologies LLC filed for bankruptcy protection in Indiana on July 26, seeking to resolve lawsuits alleging that 3M’s Combat Arms Earplugs Version 2 (CAEv2) caused hearing loss.
Aearo will continue in the chapter 11 proceedings and 3M will continue to defend its position in the litigation, the company said in a statement late on Friday.
“3M continues to expect to complete the pending separation of its food safety business on the targeted closing date of September 1,” 3M added.
The lawsuits have been consolidated in federal court in Florida and have grown into the largest mass tort litigation in U.S. history. Aearo placed $1 billion in a trust to settle them and agreed to indemnify 3M for all liability related to CAEv2.
3M has denied liability, saying its earplugs offered protection to soldiers while allowing them to hear on the battlefield.
The Florida judge overseeing the earplug lawsuits, U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers, has admonished 3M for “naked duplicity” in attempting to dump its liabilities into a bankrupt subsidiary.
3M and Aearo have in turn criticized Rodgers for allowing the consolidated litigation to balloon, pointing out that earplug cases now account for a whopping 30% of all cases pending in U.S. federal courts.
3M has lost 10 of the 16 cases that have gone to trial so far, with about $265 million being awarded in total to 13 plaintiffs.
3M’s stock price was down 12% Friday to $129.
Companies have in recent years increasingly used bankruptcy proceedings to protect non-bankrupt owners and affiliates from litigation, with Johnson & Johnson’s effort to offload lawsuits alleging that its talc-based baby powder caused cancer a recent example.
J&J has denied liability and said its talc-based baby powder is safe. The J&J affiliate’s bankruptcy case is under review, after cancer victims appealed a court ruling that blocked their lawsuits against J&J.
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Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Additional reporting by Ann Maria Shibu in Bengaluru; Editing by Josie Kao, Alexia Garamfalvi and Rosalba O’Brien
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Deshaun Watson appeal will proceed on paper only, with no hearing
Now that the NFL has appealed the Deshaun Watson decision to the NFL, what happens next?
The Personal Conduct Policy and the relevant provision of the Collective Bargaining Agreement lay out the next steps.
Here’e the relevant language of the Personal Conduct Policy: “Such appeals will be: (i) processed on an expedited basis; (ii) limited to consideration of the terms of discipline imposed; and (iii) based upon a review of the existing record without reference to evidence or testimony not previously considered. No additional evidence or testimony shall be presented to or accepted by the Commissioner or his designee. Any factual findings and evidentiary determinations of the Disciplinary Officer will be binding to the parties on appeal, and the decision of the Commissioner or his designee, which may overturn, reduce, modify or increase the discipline previously issued, will be final and binding on all parties.”
Because there’s no new evidence, there’s no reason for a new hearing. Neither the Personal Conduct Policy nor the CBA call for a hearing on appeal. Instead, it’s simply a matter of both sides submitting their paperwork to Commissioner Roger Goodell or whoever he designates to reach the same decision he would reach.
In this specific case, the factual findings and evidentiary determinations made by Judge Sue L. Robinson give the Commissioner or his designee all the ammunition needed to replace her six-game suspension with something more. She found that Watson violated three different provisions of the policy as to four different people. Nothing about her decision to suspend Watson six games limits the ability of Goodell or his designee to implement a much longer suspension.
That’s the most important thing to remember. Judge Robinson determined the facts. And the facts that she determined are exactly what the NFL wanted them to be. Although the NFL didn’t like her decision as to the length of a suspension, the NFL has the ability under the policy to appeal the decision to the NFL, and to replace her six-game suspension with whatever the NFL would prefer it otherwise be.
World Court says it has jurisdiction, Myanmar genocide case to proceed
THE HAGUE, July 22 (Reuters) – The World Court on Friday rejected Myanmar’s objections to a genocide case over its treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority, paving the way for the case to be heard in full.
Myanmar, now ruled by a military junta that seized power in 2021, had argued that Gambia, which brought the suit, had no standing to do so at the top U.N. court, formally known as the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
But presiding Judge Joan Donoghue said all states that had signed the 1948 Genocide Convention could and must act to prevent genocide, and the court had jurisdiction in the case.
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“Gambia, as a state party to the genocide convention, has standing,” she said, reading a summary of the 13-judge panel’s ruling.
The court will now proceed to hearing the merits of the case, a process that will take years.
Gambia took up the Rohingya’s cause in 2019, backed by the 57-nation Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, in a suit aiming to hold Myanmar accountable and prevent further bloodshed.
Gambia Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said outside the courtroom he was “very happy” with the decision and was confident the suit would prevail.
Gambia became involved after his predecessor, Abubacarr Tambadou, a former prosecutor at the U.N. Rwanda tribunal, visited a refugee camp in Bangladesh and said that the stories he heard evoked memories of the genocide in Rwanda.
A representative for Myanmar said that the state would do its “utmost” to protect the country’s “national interest” in further proceedings.
An exhausted Rohingya refugee woman touches the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, September 11, 2017. Picture taken September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui/File Photo
Protesters outside the court’s gates hoisted a red banner with the text “Free Burma” and yelled at cars carrying the junta’s representatives leaving the building after the decision.
A U.N. fact-finding mission concluded that a 2017 military campaign by Myanmar that drove 730,000 Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh had included “genocidal acts”.
Myanmar has denied genocide, rejecting the U.N. findings as “biased and flawed”. It says its crackdown was aimed at Rohingya rebels who had carried out attacks.
While the Hague court’s decisions are binding and countries generally follow them, it has no way of enforcing them.
In a 2020 provisional decision it ordered Myanmar to protect the Rohingya from harm, a legal victory that established their right under international law as a protected minority.
However Rohingya groups and rights activists say there has been no meaningful attempt to end their systemic persecution.
Rohingya are still denied citizenship and freedom of movement in Myanmar. Tens of thousands have now been confined to squalid displacement camps for a decade.
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry welcomed the judgment in a statement.
“For the victims living in the camps in Bangladesh as well as in Myanmar, they see the hope that justice will be delivered to them and that the perpetrators in the Myanmar military will be brought to accountability,” said Ambia Parveen of the European Rohingya Council outside the court.
The junta has imprisoned democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who defended Myanmar personally in 2019 hearings in The Hague.
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Reporting by Toby Sterling, and Poppy McPherson in Bangkok; Editing by Peter Graff and Alison Williams
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Country Music HOF Ceremony To Proceed Following Naomi Judd’s Death – Deadline
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will continue with its medallion ceremony on Sunday, May 1st in Nashville following news of the death of country music icon Naomi Judd, who, along with her daughter Wynonna, was set to be inducted as The Judds.
According to a Country Music Hall of Fame rep, Wynonna Judd is expected to attend the induction ceremony.
CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Kyle Young, said in a statement provided to Billboard that the Judd family requested the ceremony to carry on in light of Naomi’s passing.
“We are shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Naomi Judd, who enters the Country Music Hall of Fame tomorrow as a member of mother-daughter duo The Judds…Naomi overcame incredible adversity on her way to a significant place in music history. Her triumphant life story overshadows today’s tragic news. Her family has asked that we continue with The Judds’ official Hall of Fame induction on Sunday. We will do so, with heavy hearts and weighted minds. Naomi and daughter Wynonna’s music will endure,” Young said in a statement.
Other inductees are to include Eddie Bayers, Ray Charles and Pete Drake.
Plans for a public red carpet arrivals are cancelled.
Earlier Saturday, Naomi Judd’s daughters, Wynonna and Ashley, announced the death of their mother in a statement released on social media.
“Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness,” the statement read. “We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”
Naomi Judd was 76.
No memorial plans have been announced yet.
Lawsuit to stop Marjorie Taylor Greene’s reelection run can proceed, judge says
The organization also filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of North Carolina voters to prevent Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) from running for reelection because of his alleged role in the storming of the Capitol but was initially unsuccessful.
The challenges claim that the lawmakers’ actions violate a provision of the 14th Amendment and thus make them ineligible to run for reelection.
The rarely cited provision of the amendment states that no one can serve in Congress “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”
The amendment was ratified shortly after the Civil War. The provision in question was meant to prevent lawmakers who fought for the Confederacy from being reelected to Congress.
Greene, 47, has been accused of frequently using language to incite violence on the U.S. Capitol, including referring to efforts to challenge the results declaring Biden the winner of the 2020 election as “our 1776 moment.” She denies that she played a role in the event that led to the deaths of five people and injuries to 140 members of law enforcement.
Greene filed a lawsuit earlier this month requesting that a judge block Georgia officials from enforcing the state law being used by Free Speech for People in its challenge, arguing that it is unconstitutional. Greene also “vigorously denies that she aided and engaged in insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power,” her lawsuit says.
While expressing her disappointment with the lawsuit, Greene suggested Monday night on Fox News that Republicans could look into retaliatory efforts to disqualify Democratic lawmakers from reelection
“The Republican Party needs to fight harder,” she told television host Tucker Carlson. “If you can challenge any representative’s candidacy or elected officeholder, I bet we could round up some Republican voters who did not like Kamala Harris funding rioters — criminal rioters — out of jail or [Representatives] Ilhan Omar or Cori Bush or Maxine Waters in inciting riots.”
“I think there’s another way to play this game,” Greene added.
Vice President Harris did not provide funding to get rioters released from jail. But following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black Minneapolis resident, by a police officer, Harris — then a senator from California — tweeted information about the Minnesota Freedom Fund, an organization that helped provide cash for bail for those protesting racism and police violence.
Just weeks after Floyd’s death, it raised an astonishing $35 million, in part because of tweets such as the one by Harris.
Georgia will begin mailing absentee ballots next week for its May 24 primary.
Judge Amy Totenberg, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by President Barack Obama, denied Greene’s request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order in a 73-page ruling, saying that the lawmaker did not meet the “burden of persuasion.”
“This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import,” Totenberg wrote. “The novelty of the factual and historical posture of this case — especially when assessed in the context of a preliminary injunction motion reviewed on a fast track — has made resolution of the complex legal issues at stake here particularly demanding.”
Any Georgia voter eligible to vote for a candidate can challenge that candidate’s qualifications by filing a written complaint within two weeks after the deadline for qualifying, according to state law. The secretary of state has to notify the candidate of the challenge before requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge. The judge goes on to hold a hearing before presenting findings to the secretary of state before the state official determines whether the candidate is qualified.
James Bopp Jr., a lawyer for Greene, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, told The Washington Post that his organization looks forward to questioning Greene under oath about her involvement in the Jan. 6 attack.
“It’s rare for any conspirator, let alone a Member of Congress, to publicly admit that the goals of their actions are preventing a peaceful transfer of power and the death of the president-elect and Speaker of the House, but that’s exactly what Marjorie Taylor Greene did,” he said in a statement. “The Constitution disqualifies from public office any elected officials who aided the insurrection, and we look forward to asking Representative Greene about her involvement under oath.”
Greene was recently mocked by late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel for contacting U.S. Capitol Police over his jokes about her — the same police she refused to honor last June when she voted against awarding them the Congressional Gold Medal for defending the Capitol and lawmakers during the insurrection. Greene had called some in her party “pro-pedophile” for supporting the confirmation of Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
The outcome of Greene’s case so far stands in stark to that of Cawthorn. Proceedings were set to begin in North Carolina to determine whether Cawthorn participated in or supported the insurrection, but he successfully sued in federal court to block the proceedings.
Cawthorn’s lawsuit doesn’t contest the facts of his involvement in the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and he has previously denied that he participated in the riot. His lawsuit pushed back on whether a state could review the qualifications of a federal candidate.
Richard Myers II, whom Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, ruled in Cawthorn’s favor, allowing the lawmaker’s name to appear on the primary ballot. Efforts to appeal the ruling were filed last week. If Cawthorn wins his primary race, Free Speech for People plans to appeal Myers’s ruling. It argues that the judge improperly blocked the group from intervening to defend the federal case and that there is no reason under federal law why the challenge shouldn’t move forward.
Cawthorn is facing a tight primary race. He falsely claimed in a recent fundraising appeal that “the left” and the media were behind the accusations he made in March that senior Republican lawmakers had invited him to participate in an “orgy” and that he had witnessed members of his party using cocaine.
NASA defends decision to proceed with modified SLS countdown test
WASHINGTON — NASA officials defended their decision to proceed with a modified version of a countdown rehearsal for the Space Launch System that does not involve fueling the rocket’s upper stage, saying they’ll wait until after the test to determine the next steps toward launch.
During an April 11 call with reporters, NASA SLS managers said they were ready to proceed with a third attempt to load the SLS at Launch Complex 39B with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants and go through a countdown that stops just before ignition of the core stage’s four RS-25 engines. That fueling and terminal countdown is scheduled for the afternoon of April 14.
NASA announced April 9 it was modifying the plan for the third attempt after discovering a faulty helium check valve in the rocket’s upper stage, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). The agency announced it will perform only “minimal propellant operations” on that upper stage during the wet dress rehearsal, and will not completely fill the stage with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as originally planned.
“We believe that this is the best option moving forward,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA Artemis launch director, during the call. “We believe that we’ll be able to meet the majority of our test objectives and provide us with a reasonably good set of data prior to rollback” to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).
She and other agency officials argued that they will still get valuable data even though the test falls short of the wet dress rehearsal originally planned, where the core and upper stages are both fully loaded. Blackwell-Thompson said there are about 25 “critical events” in the terminal phase of the countdown, from T-10 minutes to the cutoff just under T-10 seconds. Only two, she said, were specific to ICPS.
NASA plans to wait until after the test is complete to determine what to do next in preparing the SLS for launch. “We’ll take a look at where we’re at and ask ourselves what’s the right next step,” said Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development at NASA Headquarters. “There’s a value of taking a step-by-step approach.”
There will be a small amount of propellant that will flow into the ICPS during the test, said John Blevins, NASA SLS chief engineer, enough to cool systems to cryogenic temperatures. That will stop just before “fast fill” of the propellant tanks would begin.
“That’s a really important piece of data to get,” said Blackwell-Thompson. “Historically, when you see leaks, especially with something small like hydrogen, it is usually when you get down to cryogenic temperatures.”
Blevins said it was too soon to say if NASA will need to do another wet dress rehearsal that includes tanking the ICPS, explaining that it will depend on data collected from other systems from the upcoming test. “If that missing data were the only missing data, and every model acted perfectly, I think we would look long and hard at whether we needed to or not,” he said, adding that it wasn’t possible to do a tanking test of the ICPS alone without also loading the core stage.
Once the SLS is rolled back to the VAB, he said replacing the faulty helium check valve should be straightforward. “Easy to get to, easy to change out.”
He declined to speculate on why the valve, which he described as a “high-reliability part,” malfunctioned. “It is somewhat of an unexpected outcome, an unexpected failure,” he said.
NASA has also declined to speculate on what these issues mean for the schedule of the Artemis 1 launch itself. That mission has launch windows of June 6 to 16, June 29 to July 17 and July 26 to Aug. 9, defined by orbital mechanics of the Earth and moon and other mission constraints. Whitmeyer said there are no issues with the SLS or Orion spacecraft that would prevent a launch “well into the fall” if necessary.
That margin may be needed since agency officials acknowledged there may be more problems yet to be found as NASA attempts another countdown test. “I can say that these will probably not be the last challenges we’ll encounter,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, “but I’m confident we have the right team in place and the ability to rally around those problems.”
U.S. has intel that Russian commanders have orders to proceed with Ukraine invasion
Washington — The U.S. has intelligence that Russian commanders have received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine, with commanders on the ground making specific plans for how they would maneuver in their sectors of the battlefield, a U.S. official told CBS News.
The orders don’t mean a invasion is a certainty, as Russian President Vladimir Putin could still change the orders if he changes his mind, the official said.
After weeks of warning that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent, President Biden told reporters on Friday that he was “convinced” Putin had made the decision to invade Ukraine and said the U.S. believed Russian forces intended to attack in the “coming days.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told “Face the Nation” that the U.S. still believes Russia is “moving forward” with plans to invade, despite denials from Moscow that Russia is preparing to launch an attack.
“Everything we’re seeing tells us that the decision we believe President Putin has made to invade is moving forward,” Blinken said. “We’ve seen that with provocations created by the Russians or separatist forces over the weekend, false flag operations, now the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’ Russia was engaged in in Belarus with 30,000 Russian forces that was supposed to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine, tensions created by Russia and the separatist forces it backs there.”
Russia has massed roughly 150,000 troops, warplanes and equipment on Ukraine’s three sides, escalating tensions with the neighboring country. The defense minister of Belarus also announced Russia will be extending military drills taking place in the country near Ukraine’s northern borders, which brought a large contingent of Russian troops to Belarus.
In anticipation of an attack, the U.S. and other allies, most recently Germany and Austria, have urged their citizens to leave the country. The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine also temporarily relocated its operations from Kyiv to Lviv due to the acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a security alert on Sunday warning that “according to media sources, there have been threats of attacks against shopping centers, railway and metro stations, and other public gathering places in major urban areas, including Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as in areas of heightened tension along the Russian border with Ukraine.”
The alert from the State Department urges U.S. citizens in Russia to take several actions, including avoiding crowds and having evacuation plans that don’t rely on federal government assistance.
While top U.S. officials have warned Russia is poised to strike Ukraine and the Pentagon has sent roughly 5,000 troops to Eastern Europe to bolster NATO forces, the Biden administration continues to keep a diplomatic option on the table. The president has stressed no American forces would go into Ukraine if Russia invades.
“My job as a diplomat is to leave absolutely no stone unturned and see if we can prevent war, and if there’s anything I can do to do that, I’m going to do it,” Blinken said Sunday. “President Biden has made very clear that he’s prepared to meet President Putin at any time in any format if that can help prevent a war. Even if the die is cast, until it’s settled, until we know that the tanks are rolling, the planes are flying, and the aggression has fully begin, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent it but we’re prepared either way.”
Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., said Ukrainian officials are using “every possibility” to force Russia to choose the diplomatic path rather than an attack.
“We are calling not only on [the] aggressor, which is Russia, but also on all of our friends and allies to get together and use every opportunity to still deter Russia from invading,” she told “Face the Nation.”
Markarova said that while Ukraine will “work day and night to make use of any possibility to still prevent Russia from invading,” events of the past few days indicate that an escalation is likely, contrary to comments from Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov that there is no plan for Russia to invade.
“What we see right now are all the strong messages are yet to get Russia not only to get out from the borders of Ukraine but they also, during the past three days, started an offensive,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, too, has called on Putin to meet with him to work to resolve the crisis, but he also criticized Western leaders gathered at a security conference in Munich on Saturday, arguing they should not wait for an attack to hit Russia with sanctions.
The Biden administration has warned that if Putin orders an attack on Ukraine, there would be steep consequences for Russia, and Blinken said Sunday that slapping Russia with sanctions now would mean the loss of the “deterrent effect.”
“Once you trigger the sanctions, you lose the deterrent effect,” he said. “As long as there is still even a minute’s worth of time in which we can deter and prevent a war, we’re going to try to uses it.”
Blinken added that the U.S. doesn’t want to detail its plans publicly, as “that will forewarn Russia.”