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Tag Archives: searches
‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ star Tammy Knickerbocker searches for ‘missing’ daughter after jail release
“Real Housewives of Orange County” alum Tammy Knickerbocker is asking for help in the search for her missing daughter.
Lindsey Knickerbocker, 34, was last seen on January 9 in Las Vegas after being released from jail for allegedly assaulting an officer for taking her dog.
Tammy added that she believes her daughter wasn’t allowed to have her dog at a hotel which prompted the altercation between Lindsey and the cop.
JEN SHAH: TERESA GIUDICE’S LAWYER REVEALS HER ‘BIGGEST CHALLENGE’ AFTER SENTENCING, GIVES REALITY STAR ADVICE
Her mother shared details with Fox News Digital about her last few interactions with her daughter and noted that Lindsey called her from a phone that was borrowed from a “guy on the street.”
Tammy said she didn’t recognize the number but received a voicemail message saying, “Please call me. Please call me. I need help.”
After the phone exchange, Tammy said she hasn’t heard from her daughter until she received a strange message that she thought was from Lindsey on January 16.
She got a notification on Facebook Messenger that said, “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Tammy said she didn’t hear from Lindsey the next day. Two days later, she received another “weird” message from a person named Eric saying her daughter was seen in a tent.
JEN SHAH SENTENCED TO 78 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR HER ROLE IN NATIONWIDE TELEMARKETING FRAUD SCAM
The mother-of-three said she hasn’t received a Facebook message since and believed she has been blocked from talking to her daughter.
The reality television star pointed out that her daughter had “a lot of drug issues.”
In 2007, Tammy joined Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Ocean County” (RHOC) in season two and three. She made several appearances throughout the different seasons.
(Getty Images)
She’s aware she’s been taking methamphetamine and said, “she’s basically an addict at this point,” but understands Lindsey needs help.
‘REAL HOUSEWIVES’ STAR JEN SHAH TO SERVE PRISON TIME: CELEBRITY LAWYER ON WHAT REALITY STARS FACE BEHIND BARS
Despite having two other similar situations like this happen to her daughter, Tammy mentioned this time it seemed “different.”
She’s worried that Lindsey is being “trafficked” and said she has been reaching out to homeless shelters but hasn’t received any news about her daughter.
In 2007, Tammy joined Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Ocean County” (RHOC) in seasons two and three. She made several appearances throughout the different seasons.
Tammy’s other daughter Megan shared on Facebook that Lindsey was missing and is asking for any details of her whereabouts.
(Facebook)
Tammy’s other daughter Megan shared on Facebook that Lindsey was missing and is asking for any details of her whereabouts.
“Has anyone seen her? Last contact was January 9th and she was scared for her life. No one has heard from her since. Absolutely gone without a trace…. her name is Lindsey and she’s 5’5 and 110lbs, brown eyes and blonde hair and 34yrs old,” Megan Knickerbocker wrote in the caption with photos of Lindsey.
Other “RHOC” stars, including Tamra Judge took to her Instagram Story to spread the word of her colleagues’ missing daughter.
(Instagram)
Other “RHOC” stars, including Tamra Judge took to her Instagram Story to spread the word about her colleagues’ missing daughter.
“Missing in Nevada area @tammyknickerbocker.oc,” with a photo of Lindsey.
When Fox News Digital asked Tammy what her relationship with her daughter is like, she responded and said they have a close bond.
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“It’s very, very close. But she’s really guilty of…everything she’s been doing,” Tammy said referring to her daughter’s jail time.
“She has a lot of guilt on her right now. She’s not suicidal, but she’s…a proud person in a sense…she’s very stubborn, but we have a good relationship.”
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Tammy continued to say she reached out to Facebook in hopes that she could track her daughter’s location but hasn’t heard back.
She additionally said she’s been in contact with the Clark County Clerk in Las Vegas since Lindsey was in jail.
FBI searches Biden’s Wilmington home and finds more classified materials
CNN
—
FBI investigators on Friday found additional classified material while conducting a search of President Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.
Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, said in a statement that during the search, which took place over nearly 13 hours Friday, “DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years.”
Those six items are in addition to materials previously found at Biden’s Wilmington residence and in his private office.
The federal search of BIden’s home, while voluntary, marks an escalation of the probe into the president’s handling of classified documents and will inevitably draw comparisons to his predecessor, former President Donald Trump – even if the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence was conducted under different circumstances.
The FBI five months ago obtained a search warrant to search Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, an unprecedented step that was taken because federal investigators had evidence suggesting Trump had not handed over all classified materials in his possession after receiving a subpoena to turn over classified documents to the National Archives. Trump’s handling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago is also the subject of a special counsel investigation led by Jack Smith.
The search shows that federal investigators are swiftly moving forward with the probe into classified documents found in Biden’s possession. It was overseen by the office of Trump-appointed US Attorney John Lausch, who has been handling the initial review of the Justice Department’s probe.
Lausch did not request any searches of Biden properties during his initial review, according to a source familiar with the investigation. He also did not wait for Biden team to complete their voluntary searches before recommending a special counsel.
Robert Hur, who was appointed a little more than a week ago, is still transitioning to his role as special counsel. A spokesperson for the Justice Department tells CNN “we expect Special Counsel Hur to be on board shortly.”
The FBI search was done with the consent of the president’s attorneys, people briefed on the matter said. The FBI also previously picked up documents found at the residence, which the Biden team disclosed last week.
The search did not require a search warrant or subpoena, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Bauer said that representatives of Biden’s personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s Office were present during the “thorough search,” during which they had “full access” to the Biden home.
Bauer added that the DOJ “requested that the search not be made public in advance, in accordance with its standard procedures, and we agreed to cooperate.”
The first documents were found in Biden’s private office on November 2 but not publicly revealed until earlier this month when CBS first reported their existence.
Since then, another search in December found a “small number” of records with classified markings in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington house and a third discovery was made at the Wilmington residence in January, when Biden’s legal team searched the rest of the property for documents. They found them, in a room adjacent to the garage.
Bauer said in a January 11 statement that once Biden’s personal attorneys found the classified documents, they left the document where it was found and suspended their search of the space where it was located.
“We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden explained Thursday during a tour of storm damage in California.
“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets,” Biden continued on Thursday.
Neither Biden nor first lady Dr. Jill Biden were present during the search, special counsel to the president Richard Sauber said in a statement.
Biden, Sauber wrote, “has been committed to handling this responsibly because he takes this seriously” and he and his team are “working swiftly to ensure DOJ and the Special Counsel have what they need to conduct a thorough review.”
Bauer said that investigators had full access to Biden’s home during the search, which included “personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades.”
Biden is spending this weekend at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home. Asked Friday by the Associated Press if the visit had anything to do with documents being found at Biden’s Wilmington home, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred reporters to White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice, but said that Biden “often travels to Delaware on the weekends.”
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
House speaker election drags into third day as McCarthy searches for support
Washington — The House of Representatives will try again Thursday to elect a speaker after failing on its first six attempts Tuesday and Wednesday, with GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California hoping to win over a faction of conservative members who are vehemently opposed to his candidacy.
McCarthy has fallen short in every round, unable to win a majority of the votes cast. The House, which cannot move on to other business until a speaker is chosen, will reconvene at noon.
Entering the Capitol on Thursday, McCarthy said, “We’re making progress.”
I think people are talking and that’s a good sign. I think that’s very good. Look, we’re all working together to find a solution,” he told reporters. McCarthy met with members opposing his bid for three hours Wednesday night.
Democrats remained united behind Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who has had the most votes in every round, with the support of all 212 Democratic House lawmakers.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
The GOP breakaway faction on Wednesday nominated Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida in place of Rep. Jim Jordan, who supports McCarthy and says he isn’t seeking the speakership. With Jeffries as the Democrats’ choice to be speaker, the balloting Wednesday marked the first time two Black men were nominated for the post.
Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning to try to sway the rebel Republicans toward McCarthy, writing that “it’s now time for all of our GREAT Republican House Members to VOTE FOR KEVIN, CLOSE THE DEAL.” Former Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted his support for McCarthy. But no GOP holdouts moved to back McCarthy following the messages from Trump and Pence.
Underground Italian lab searches for signals of quantum gravity
For decades, physicists have been hunting for a quantum-gravity model that would unify quantum physics, the laws that govern the very small, and gravity. One major obstacle has been the difficulty in testing the predictions of candidate models experimentally. But some of the models predict an effect that can be probed in the lab: a very small violation of a fundamental quantum tenet called the Pauli exclusion principle, which determines, for instance, how electrons are arranged in atoms.
A project carried out at the INFN underground laboratories under the Gran Sasso mountains in Italy, has been searching for signs of radiation produced by such a violation in the form of atomic transitions forbidden by the Pauli exclusion principle.
In two papers appearing in the journals Physical Review Letters (published on September 19, 2022) and Physical Review D (accepted for publication on December 7, 2022) the team reports that no evidence of violation has been found, thus far, ruling out some quantum-gravity models.
In school chemistry lessons, we are taught that electrons can only arrange themselves in certain specific ways in atoms, which turns out to be due to the Pauli exclusion principle. At the center of the atom there is the atomic nucleus, surrounded by orbitals, with electrons. The first orbital, for instance, can only house two electrons. The Pauli exclusion principle, formulated by Austrian physicist Wolfang Pauli in 1925, says that no two electrons can have the same quantum state; so, in the first orbital of an atom the two electrons have oppositely pointing “spins” (a quantum internal property usually depicted as an axis of rotation, pointing up or down, although no literal axis exists in the electron).
The happy result of this for humans is that it means matter cannot pass through other matter. “It is ubiquitous—you, me, we are Pauli-exclusion-principle-based,” says Catalina Curceanu, a member of the physics think-tank, the Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi, and the lead physicist on the experiments at INFN, Italy. “The fact we cannot cross walls is another practical consequence.”
The principle extends to all elementary particles belonging to the same family as electrons, called fermions, and has been derived mathematically from a fundamental theorem known as the spin-statistics theorem. It has also been confirmed experimentally—thus far—appearing to hold for all fermions in tests. The Pauli exclusion principle forms one of the core tenets of the standard model of particle physics.
Violating the principle
But some speculative models of physics, beyond the standard model, suggest that the principle may be violated. For decades now, physicists have been searching for a fundamental theory of reality. The standard model is terrific at explaining the behavior of particles, interactions and quantum processes on the microscale. However, it does not encompass gravity.
So, physicists have been trying to develop a unifying theory of quantum gravity, some versions of which predict that various properties that underpin the standard model, such as the Pauli exclusion principle, may be violated in extreme circumstances.
“Many of these violations are naturally occurring in so-called ‘noncommutative’ quantum-gravity theories and models, such as the ones we explored in our papers,” says Curceanu. One of the most popular candidate quantum-gravity frameworks is string theory, which describes fundamental particles as tiny vibrating threads of energy in multidimensional spaces. Some string theory models also predict such a violation.
“The analysis we reported disfavors some concrete realizations of quantum gravity,” says Curceanu.
It is traditionally thought to be hard to test such predictions because quantum gravity will usually only become relevant in arenas where there is a huge amount of gravity concentrated into a tiny space—think of the center of a black hole or the beginning of the universe.
However, Curceanu and her colleagues realized that there may be a subtle effect—a signature that the exclusion principle and the spin-statistics theorem have been violated—that could be picked up in lab experiments on Earth.
Deep under the Gran Sasso mountains, near the town of L’Aquila, in Italy, Curceanu’s team is working on the VIP-2 (Violation of the Pauli Principle) lead experiment. At the heart of the apparatus is a thick block made of Roman lead, with a nearby germanium detector that can pick up small signs of radiation emanating from the lead.
The idea is that if the Pauli exclusion principle is violated, a forbidden atomic transition will occur within the Roman lead, generating an X-ray with a distinct energy signal. This X-ray can be picked up by the germanium detector.
Cosmic silence
The lab must be housed underground because the radiation signature from such a process will be so faint, it would otherwise be drowned out by the general background radiation on Earth from cosmic rays. “Our laboratory ensures what is called ‘cosmic silence,’ in the sense that the Gran Sasso mountain reduces the flux of cosmic rays by a million times,” says Curceanu. That alone is not enough, however.
“Our signal has a possible rate of just one or two events per day, or less,” says Curceanu. That means that materials used in the experiment must themselves be “radio-pure”—that is, they must not emit any radiation themselves—and the apparatus must be shielded from radiation from the mountain rocks and radiation coming from underground.
“What is extremely exciting is that we can probe some quantum-gravity models with such a high precision, which is impossible to do at present-day accelerators,” says Curceanu.
In their recent papers, the team reports having found no evidence for violation of the Pauli principle. “FQXi-funding was fundamental for developing the data analysis techniques,” says Curceanu. This allowed the team to set limits on the size of any possible violation and helped them constrain some proposed quantum-gravity models.
In particular, the team analyzed the predictions of the so-called “theta-Poincaré” model and were able to rule out some versions of the model to the Planck scale (the scale at which the known classical laws of gravity break down). In addition, “the analysis we reported disfavors some concrete realizations of quantum gravity,” says Curceanu.
The team now plans to extend its research to other quantum-gravity models, with their theoretician colleagues Antonino Marcianò from Fudan University and Andrea Addazi from Sichuan University, both in China. “On the experimental side, we will use new target materials and new analysis methods, to search for faint signals to unveil the fabric of spacetime,” says Curceanu.
“What is extremely exciting is that we can probe some quantum-gravity models with such a high precision, which is impossible to do at present-day accelerators,” Curceanu adds. “This is a big leap, both from theoretical and experimental points of view.”
More information:
Kristian Piscicchia et al, Strongest Atomic Physics Bounds on Noncommutative Quantum Gravity Models, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.131301
Kristian Piscicchia et al, Experimental test of noncommutative quantum gravity by VIP-2 Lead, Physical Review D (2022). journals.aps.org/prd/accepted/ … 182249cd253e38bf3406
Provided by
Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi
Citation:
Underground Italian lab searches for signals of quantum gravity (2022, December 19)
retrieved 20 December 2022
from https://phys.org/news/2022-12-underground-italian-lab-quantum-gravity.html
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Brittany Murphy’s brother Tony Bertolotti searches for answers 13 years after the actress’ death
Brittany Murphy’s brother Tony Bertolotti continues to search for answers 13 years after the actress’ mysterious death as he believes she was ‘taken out’
Brittany Murphy’s brother has spoken out as he continues to search for answers 13 years after her death as he believes she was ‘taken out’.
The actress unexpectedly died aged just 32 in December of 2009 after collapsing at her Hollywood home; the coroner’s report stated that the primary cause of her death was pneumonia.
Murphy’s husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, 40, also passed away from pneumonia and anemia five months later.
Tony Bertolotti, 74, is linked to Brittany through father Angelo, who passed in January 2019 aged 92, after spending years trying to uncover the truth about his daughter.
Tragic: Brittany Murphy’s brother has spoken out as he continues to search for answers 13 years after her death as he believes she was ‘taken out’
Speaking to The Sun, Tony revealed he’s discovered that there were three people in control of the late Clueless stars estate – Sharon, a newspaper editor, and a doctor she was being treated by.
He explained Brittany had ‘no control over her estate’ and: ‘There were huge amounts of money in [Brittany’s] pension plan and bank account, and all of that’s gone.’
Tony is looking for answers on where Brittany’s $10 million fortune went and believes her mother Sharon, who lived with the couple before they passed away, knows the truth.
Looking for answers: Tony Bertolotti, 74, who is linked to Brittany through father Angelo, is looking for answers on where Brittany’s $10 million fortune went and believes her mother Sharon, who lived with the couple before they passed away, knows the truth
He said: ‘Sharon knows the truth and she hasn’t picked up the phone with one member of the family and told them the truth.’
Reports at the time said Monjack was written out of the will and the whole of the estate went to Sharon, but as Brittany’s assets were held in a trust, her estate’s contents remain confidential.
Tony added: ‘There’s no way she died of natural causes. It’s impossible. It’s bull***t, total c**p. It was obvious to me, she was taken out.’
Mystery: The star’s husband Simon Monjack died at 40 – under the same peculiar circumstances – just five months after the actress (pictured 2007)
Murphy began her career in 1991, and was notably featured in the Fox sitcom Drexell’s Class, which premiered that year.
She later moved on to film roles and starred in numerous successful movies including Drop Dead Gorgeous, Girl, Interrupted and Cherry Falls.
The actress also made several ventures into voice acting and notably voiced Luanne Platter on the longrunning animated comedy show King Of The Hill.
Family: The clueless stars father Angelo passed in January 2019 aged 92, after spending years trying to uncover the truth about his daughter
However, Murphy unexpectedly passed away in December of 2009 after collapsing at her Hollywood home; the coroner’s report stated that the primary cause of her death was pneumonia.
It was also revealed that the actress had been suffering from the effects of iron deficiency anemia and that she was using various over-the-counter drugs and prescribed medications; both factors contributed to her passing.
Months later, Murphy’s husband Simon Monjack was found dead in the couple’s home, and his death was also attributed to pneumonia and anemia as well, which fueled tabloid rumors for a lengthy period.
Tony said: ‘Sharon knows the truth and she hasn’t picked up the phone with one member of the family and told them the truth.’ (Sharon Murphy and Angelo pictured)
Recent searches for light fermionic dark matter by the PandaX-4T collaboration
Teams of astrophysicists worldwide are trying to observe different possible types of dark matter (DM), hypothetical matter in the universe that does not emit, absorb or reflect light and would thus be very difficult to detect. Fermionic DM, however, which would be made of fermions, has so far been primarily explored theoretically.
The PandaX Collaboration, a large consortium of researchers in China involved in the PandaX-4T experiment, has recently carried out a study aimed at extending the sensitive mass window for experiments aimed at directly detecting fermionic DM from above GeV to MeV or even keV ranges.
The team recently published two papers in Physical Review Letters outlining the results of the two searches for the absorption of fermionic DM using data gathered as part of the Panda X-4T experiment, a large-scale research effort aimed at detecting DM using a dual-phase time projection chamber (TPC) in China.
“With a massive DM converted to a massless neutrino, the DM mass is absorbed and converted to the kinetic energy of the neutrino and most importantly the recoiled electron or nuclear targets,” Prof. Shao-Feng Ge, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org.
“With efficient mass conversion to energy, according to the Einstein relation E = mc2, even keV (MeV) DM can deposit a large enough recoil energy in the recoil electron (nuclei).”
The idea of observing light fermionic DM by detecting the recoil energy resulting from the absorption of its mass first emerged a few years ago and has since been explored by different groups of theoretical physicists. While these studies offered valuable theoretical predictions, these predictions had so far never been tested experimentally.
“Past phenomenological papers established the basic features of this unique channel for fermionic DM r searches,” Prof. Ge explained. “The PandaX collaboration worked hard to first search for the predicted signals using real data.”
Theoretical studies predict that in nuclear absorption reactions, the mass of DM is converted into kinetic energy that charges the outgoing neutrino and nucleus. This energy, known as “nuclear recoil energy,” should be approximately proportional to the square of the DM mass, resulting in a unique mono-energetic spectrum. In their first study, the PandaX-4T collaboration tried to detect the energy resulting from the absorption of fermionic DM by nuclei.
“This mono-energetic spectrum is dramatically different from the traditional elastic scattering spectrum and has not been searched dedicatedly before in the DM direct detection experiment,” Dr. Yi Tao, another researcher involved in the study, told Phys.org. “As part of this PandaX-4T search, we performed dedicated studies on the nuclear recoil energy reconstruction and then compared simulation and neutron calibration data.”
The researchers found that there was a good consistency between the data collected by their dual-phase time projection chamber (TPC) and their detector response theoretical model. More specifically, the signal region they scanned corresponded to nuclear recoil energy up to 100 keV, which covers the DM mass parameter from 30 MeV/c2 to 125 MeV/c2.
In a similar way to nuclear absorption processes, electronic absorption processes are also predicted to be sensitive to light DM, but in a different mass range. In fact, electronic absorption processes imply the conversion of a hypothetical fermionic DM particle’s static mass into the kinetic energy of electrons, creating a free electron.
Theoretically, fermionic DM should thus induce electronic recoiling signals in liquid xenon detectors that could be experimentally detected. In their second study, the PandaX-4T collaboration searched for this other potential trace of fermionic DM.
Electrons are much lighter than nuclei and thus easier to be ejected during absorption processes. Therefore, electronic absorption searches can be sensitive to the sub-MeV mass range.
“In addition, unlike nuclear recoiling signals where quite a bit of energy is quenched into heat and cannot be detected in a liquid xenon detector, most of the electronic recoiling energy is detectable,” Dr. Dan Zhang, another researcher who carried out the study, told Phys.org.
“For more detailed theoretical models, different hypothetical six-dimensional operators in the four-fermion process (fermionic DM + electron -> electron + neutrino) have been studied with an effective field theory approach. It turns out electronic absorption signals will be similar regardless of operators in the direct detection experiments, but the interpretations on the couplings are quite different, and the comparison with other cosmological and astrophysical observations are also different.”
The search for sub-MeV fermionic DM absorbed by electrons carried out by Dr. Zhang and the rest of the PandaX-4T collaboration did not lead to the detection of any significant signals over the expected background. Nonetheless, the team was able to set the strongest limits on the axial-vector and vector interactions for DMs with a mass of several tens keV/c2, which surpass the existing astronomy and cosmology constraints for such light fermion DMs.
“About two years ago, XENON1T reported a low-energy excess, which could be interpreted as an electronic absorption of 60 keV/c2 fermionic DM according to phenomenological studies,” Dr. Zhang said. “This possibility is now challenged by our data.”
The recent searches performed by the PandaX-4T collaboration highlight the potential of nuclear absorption and electronic absorption processes as channels to search for light mass DM. In the future, they could inspire other astrophysics collaborations worldwide to perform similar searches.
“Once any excess is observed, the energy of the excess would indicate the mass of DM,” Prof. Ning Zhou, another researcher involved in the study, told Phys.org. “For this channel, we obtained model-independent constraints on the sub-GeV DM-nucleon scattering cross section and probe down to the 10^-50 cm2 region for 35 MeV/c2 DM mass, for the first time. In addition, we study a UV-complete model with Z’ mediator, which brings together the cosmology constraint, the collider constraint, and our limit from direct detection.”
So far, the Panda X-4T collaboration successfully set new limits for experiments aimed at directly detecting fermionic DM. As their experiment is ongoing and is thus still collecting data, the team will soon be conducting additional searches for elusive, light DM.
“The data we reported is equivalent to exposing a 600-kg liquid xenon target for one year to the illumination of this hypothetical DM,” Prof. Jianglai Liu, Spokesperson for the PandaX Collaboration, told Phys.org. “When PandaX-4T concludes in 2025, we anticipate a cumulative exposure of 10 times greater. We also expect to obtain a more precise understanding of our detector to the nuclear recoil and electronic recoil signals via thorough calibrations and we are excited to see how the story unfolds in the future.”
More information:
Linhui Gu et al, First Search for the Absorption of Fermionic Dark Matter with the PandaX-4T Experiment, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.161803
Dan Zhang et al, Search for Light Fermionic Dark Matter Absorption on Electrons in PandaX-4T, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.161804
Jeff A. Dror et al, Directly Detecting Signals from Absorption of Fermionic Dark Matter, Physical Review Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.181301
Jeff A. Dror et al, Absorption of sub-MeV fermionic dark matter by electron targets, Physical Review D (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.103.035001
Jeff A. Dror et al, Erratum: Absorption of sub-MeV fermionic dark matter by electron targets [Phys. Rev. D 103 , 035001 (2021)], Physical Review D (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.105.119903
Jeff A. Dror et al, Absorption of fermionic dark matter by nuclear targets, Journal of High Energy Physics (2020). DOI: 10.1007/JHEP02(2020)134
Shao-Feng Ge et al, Revisiting the fermionic dark matter absorption on electron target, Journal of High Energy Physics (2022). DOI: 10.1007/JHEP05(2022)191
© 2022 Science X Network
Citation:
Recent searches for light fermionic dark matter by the PandaX-4T collaboration (2022, November 14)
retrieved 15 November 2022
from https://phys.org/news/2022-11-fermionic-dark-pandax-4t-collaboration.html
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part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
Wagner group: Russian mercenaries bombard Bakhmut as Moscow searches for a win
Bakhmut, Ukraine
CNN
—
In the ruins of an apartment block tarred with soot and clouded in dust amid constant shelling, a small group of Ukrainian soldiers are face to face with a new type of Russian enemy: mercenaries, some of whom may be convicts sent to the front line.
The battle is as heated as it is crucial around the city of Bakhmut. Russian positions are within 200 meters of the Ukrainian military unit that CNN has joined. The unit is caught in a gruesome artillery duel, sheltering in basements, and using commercially purchased drones as the best line of defense and intelligence.
Through broken windows, from inside rooms littered with rubble, Ukrainian soldiers look across the neighboring field, pockmarked with countless blackened craters from artillery impacts.
“They can see us here,” said one Ukrainian soldier, pointing into the distance.
This is a new type of fighter on the front line. Moscow’s manpower has dwindled after as many as 80,000 casualties, according to US officials, leading Moscow to turn to the country’s sprawling private sector of mercenaries, namely the Wagner group.
The Wagner group is allegedly run by the man known as “Putin’s Chef”, Yevgeny Prigozhin. A man matching Prigozhin’s appearance recently appeared in a video in a Russian prison yard, extolling to prisoners the virtues of joining his Wagner group and fighting on the front line.
Here in Bakhmut is where that system is put into ruthless action. This city has been the focus of Russian forces in the past weeks, even as they abandon positions around Kharkiv and appear to struggle to hold ground elsewhere. Wagner mercenaries have been deployed to that fight, according to multiple reports from Russian media, and have been making gains around the eastern edges of the city.
The mercenaries’ attacks are often devastatingly callous: the Ukrainians tell CNN that the Wagner fighters rush at them with small arms attacks, causing the Ukrainians to fire at them to protect their positions. The gunfire then gives away where the Ukrainians are, allowing the Russian artillery to target with greater accuracy.
The attacks are regular, and the shelling is almost constant.
“We see an enemy mortar unit. They’re preparing to fire at us,” a drone operator said, looking into his monitor.
During CNN’s time with this unit on Tuesday, shells landed intermittently nearby, at one point shaking the walls of the basement shelter. Here, a Ukrainian officer, known by his call sign “Price”, tells CNN about the last Russian they took prisoner.
“We are fighting a bit with those musicians,” he said, referencing the Wagner group, named after the composer.
“There was one Wagner guy we caught. He was a convict, from Russia – I don’t remember exactly where from. It was get shot or surrender for him. They act professionally, not like usual infantry units,” he said.
“The real problem is artillery, it is really precise,” he added.
As he spoke, another shell slammed near the shelter.
Bakhmut’s city center is now littered with large craters from Russian shelling, with main streets torn up, and the stadium’s seating torn in two.
Analysts believe the city could provide Moscow with a strategic position in the Donbass from which to advance further north towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk – and offer a badly needed strategic victory at a time of spiraling losses.
At a series of trenches at another front line, buried in the forests, Martyn, another Ukrainian officer, agreed.
“[The Russians] retreated elsewhere and they need a victory, something significant, so they throw forces here,” he said.
“Of course we have casualties, not today in our unit. But you can’t avoid dead or wounded, sometimes heavily injured.”
These losses have been intensely personal. “I lost my close friend, five days after we came here. His nickname was Dancer,” he said. Like with so many call signs or nicknames, Martyn has no idea why his friend got this one.
Around the city, local life is punctuated with massive blasts from the shelling. One local, Andrei, has eyes forlorn and dark that speak to the explosions, the lack of electricity, water and calm.
Still, he said of his street, “It’s not too bad, only every second house is ruined.”
Helping many eke out a life is Natalia, selling potatoes – half a ton of them in this one morning alone. “Who knows where the shelling is coming or going,” she said, as another loud blast caused her to laugh nervously.
“Don’t be scared,” she added.
On Wednesday, Bakhmut’s streets appeared emptier and the shelling appeared to intensify on the eastern edge of the city, with Ukrainian guns targeting Russian positions, it seemed.
An apartment block, hit once already, was still smoking after another rocket tore through all four floors. Soldiers anxiously milled on the street outside, inspecting the damage. Military vehicles whizzed along the streets.
Slower, walking home with food in a trolley with loud and squeaky wheels, was pensioner Maria, her eyes covered by large sunglasses.
“With God you have no fear. And on your own land you cannot feel fear either,” Maria said. More blast noises broke through the shrill squeak of her rusty wheels.
Google adds Ethereum Merge countdown clock as searches reach all-time high
Google Cloud developer Sam Padilla announced Friday that an Ethereum Merge countdown clock is live in the Google Search engine. Searches for “Ethereum Merge” now return a native countdown clock along with the current hashrate, difficulty, and merge difficulty.
Hey @VitalikButerin @drakefjustin & other @ethereum folks, go google “the merge” for a fun little surprise & appreciation.
Everyone is so excited for what is coming and appreciative of the work that has been going into this for years. pic.twitter.com/3bgifV6Ywn
— Sam Padilla (@theSamPadilla) September 9, 2022
The addition showcases the level at which crypto has penetrated FANG companies and the number of eyes on The Merge. Interest in The Merge has exploded over the past several weeks, with Google predicting that it will continue to rise in the days ahead.
The countries most interested in The Merge are Luxembourg, St. Helena, Singapore, North Macedonia, and Lithuania. The highest European country is Switzerland at number 7, while China and the U.S. are at position 17 and 18, respectively.
The rising interest was also helped by Padilla spearheading the development of the merge integration into Google. In response to Sassal, Padilla explained that he kickstarted the idea and the “search and labs team internally” built out the search feature.
It wasn’t just me.
And the actual lifting of the work was on the search and labs team internally. All I did was kickstart the idea and discussion that led to this hehe
But this is indeed pretty cool
— Sam Padilla (@theSamPadilla) September 10, 2022
The illustrated pandas will merge in true Google style when the Ethereum Merge is complete. The pandas will also move closer together every day until The Merge occurs. The panda is a well-known staple of Ethereum merge meme culture.
The meme uses a black bear to represent the execution layer and a white bear as the consensus layer. The Merge happens when the bears combine to create a fighting panda.
F.B.I. Searches Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Residence in Florida
Former President Donald J. Trump said on Monday that the F.B.I. had searched his Palm Beach, Fla., home and had broken open a safe — an account signaling a major escalation in the various investigations into the final stages of his presidency.
The search, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation, appeared to be focused on material that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, when he left the White House. Those boxes contained many pages of classified documents, according to a person familiar with their contents.
Mr. Trump delayed returning 15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives for many months, only doing so when there became a threat of action to retrieve them. The case was referred to the Justice Department by the archives early this year.
The search marked the latest remarkable turn in the long-running investigations into Mr. Trump’s actions before, during and after his presidency — and even as he weighs announcing another candidacy for the White House.
It came as the Justice Department has stepped up its separate inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after his defeat at the polls in the 2020 election and as the former president also faces an accelerating criminal inquiry in Georgia and civil actions in New York.
Mr. Trump has long cast the F.B.I. as a tool of Democrats who have been out to get him, and the search set off a furious reaction among his supporters in the Republican Party and on the far right of American politics. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader in the House, suggested that he intended to investigate Attorney General Merrick B. Garland if Republicans took control of the House in November.
The F.B.I. would have needed to convince a judge that it had probable cause that a crime had been committed, and that agents might find evidence at Mar-a-Lago, to get a search warrant. Proceeding with a search on a former president’s home would almost surely have required sign-off from top officials at the bureau and the Justice Department.
The search, however, does not mean prosecutors have determined that Mr. Trump committed a crime.
An F.B.I. representative declined to comment, as did Justice Department officials. The F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, was appointed by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump was in the New York area at the time of the search. “Another day in paradise,” he said Monday night during a telephone rally for Sarah Palin, who is running for a congressional seat in Alaska.
Eric Trump, one of his sons, told Fox News that he was the one who informed his father that the search was taking place, and he said the search warrant was related to presidential documents.
Mr. Trump, who campaigned for president in 2016 criticizing Hillary Clinton’s practice of maintaining a private email server for government-related messages while she was secretary of state, was known throughout his term to rip up official material that was intended to be held for presidential archives. One person familiar with his habits said that included classified material that was shredded in his bedroom and elsewhere.
The search was at least in part for whether any records remained at the club, a person familiar with it said. It took place on Monday morning, the person said, although Mr. Trump said agents were still there many hours later.
“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Mr. Trump said, maintaining it was an effort to stop him from running for president in 2024. “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.”
“They even broke into my safe!” he wrote.
Mr. Trump did not share any details about what the F.B.I. agents said they were searching for.
Aides to President Biden said they were stunned by the development and learned of it from Twitter.
The search came as the Justice Department has also been stepping up questioning of former Trump aides who had been witnesses to discussions and planning in the White House of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss.
Mr. Trump has been the focus of questions asked by federal prosecutors in connection with a scheme to send “fake” electors to Congress for the certification of the Electoral College. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol also continues its work and is interviewing witnesses this week.
The law governing the preservation of White House materials, the Presidential Records Act, lacks teeth, but criminal statutes can come into play, especially in the case of classified material.
Criminal codes, which carry jail time, can be used to prosecute anyone who “willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States” and anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys” government documents.
Samuel R. Berger, a national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge for removing classified material from a government archive. In 2007, Donald Keyser, an Asia expert and former senior State Department official, was sentenced to prison after he confessed to keeping more than 3,000 sensitive documents — ranging from the classified to the top secret — in his basement.
In 1999, the C.I.A. announced it had suspended the security clearance of its former director, John M. Deutch, after concluding that he had improperly handled national secrets on a desktop computer at his home.
In January of this year, the archives retrieved 15 boxes that Mr. Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago from the White House residence when his term ended. The boxes included material subject to the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all documents and records pertaining to official business be turned over to the archives.
The items in the boxes included documents, mementos, gifts and letters. The archives did not describe the classified material it found other than to say that it was “classified national security information.”
Because the National Archives “identified classified information in the boxes,” the agency “has been in communication with the Department of Justice,” David S. Ferriero, the national archivist, told Congress at the time.
Federal prosecutors subsequently began a grand jury investigation, according to two people briefed on the matter. Prosecutors issued a subpoena earlier this year to the archives to obtain the boxes of classified documents, according to the two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
The authorities also made interview requests to people who worked in the White House in the final days of Mr. Trump’s presidency, according to one of the people.
In the spring, a small coterie of federal agents visited Mar-a-Lago in search of some documents, according to a person familiar with the meeting. At least one of the agents was involved in counterintelligence, according to the person.
The question of how Mr. Trump has handled sensitive material and documents he received as president loomed throughout his time in the White House, and beyond.
He was known to rip up pieces of official paper that he was handed, forcing officials to tape them back together. And an upcoming book by a New York Times reporter reveals that staff members would find clumps of torn-up paper clogging a toilet, and believed he had thrown them in.
The question of how Mr. Trump handled classified material is complicated because as president he had the authority to declassify any government information. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump, before leaving office, had declassified materials the archives discovered in the boxes. Under federal law, he no longer maintains the ability to declassify documents after leaving office.
While in office, he invoked the power to declassify information several times as his administration publicly released materials that helped him politically, particularly on issues like the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
Toward the end of the administration, Mr. Trump ripped pictures that intrigued him out of the President’s Daily Brief — a compendium of often classified information about potential national security threats — but it is unclear whether he took them to the residence with him. In one prominent example of how he dealt with classified material, Mr. Trump in 2019 took a highly classified spy satellite image of an Iranian missile launch site, declassified it and then released the photo on Twitter.
Earlier this year, Kash Patel, a former Defense Department senior official and Trump loyalist whom Mr. Trump named as one of his representatives to engage with the National Archives, suggested to the right-wing website Breitbart that Mr. Trump had declassified the documents before leaving the White House and that the proper markings simply had not been adjusted.
“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” he said, according to Breitbart.
Local television crews showed supporters of Mr. Trump gathering near Mar-a-Lago, some of them being aggressive toward reporters.
Mr. Trump made clear in his statement that he sees potential political value in the search, something some of his advisers echoed, depending on what any investigation produces.
His political team began sending fund-raising solicitations about the search late on Monday evening.
Jonathan Martin, Luke Broadwater and Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.