  | Harvey Mackay |
One summer night at an all-girls summer camp, the campers were gathered around in a circle for nighttime conversation. The counselor asked if any of the girls wanted to share something that had affected her that day. One camper raised her hand and said a girl from another cabin had said something that hurt her feelings, and she was really upset about it.
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| | ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ POW survived Nazi camps |
Robert Clary, a French-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II who played a feisty prisoner of war in the improbable 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," has died. He was 96.
Clary died Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif.
"He never let those horrors defeat him," niece Brenda Hancock said. "He never let them take the joy out of his life. He tried to spread that joy to others through his singing and his dancing and his painting."
When he recounted his life to students, he told them, "Don't ever hate," Hancock said. "He didn't let hate overcome the beauty in this world."
"Hogan's Heroes," in which Allied soldiers in a POW camp bested their clownish German army captors with espionage schemes, played the war strictly for laughs during its 1965-71 run. The 5-foot-1 Clary sported a beret and a sardonic smile as Cpl. Louis LeBeau.
Clary was the last surviving original star of the sitcom that included Bob Crane, Richard Dawson, Larry Hovis and Ivan Dixon as the prisoners. Werner Klemperer and John Banner, their captors, both were European Jews who fled Nazi persecution before the war.
Clary began his career as a nightclub singer and appeared on stage in musicals including "Irma La Douce" and "Cabaret." After "Hogan's Heroes," Clary's TV work included the soap operas "The Young and the Restless," "Days of Our Lives" and "The Bold and the Beautiful."
He considered musical theater the highlight of his career. "I loved to go to the theater at quarter of eight, put the stage makeup on and entertain," he said in a 2014 interview.
He remained publicly silent about his wartime experience until 1980 when, Clary said, he was provoked to speak out by those who denied or diminished the orchestrated effort by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews. A documentary about Clary's childhood and years of horror at Nazi hands, "Robert Clary, A5714: A Memoir of Liberation," was released in 1985. The forearms of concentration camp prisoners were tattooed with identification numbers, with A5714 to be Clary's lifelong mark.
"They write books and articles in magazines denying the Holocaust, making a mockery of the 6 million Jews — including a million and a half children — who died in the gas chambers and ovens," he said in a 1985 AP interview.
Twelve of his immediate family members, his parents and 10 siblings, were killed under the Nazis, Clary wrote in a biography posted on his website.
In 1997, he was among dozens of Holocaust survivors whose portraits and stories were included in "The Triumphant Spirit," a book by photographer Nick Del Calzo.
"I beg the next generation not to do what people have done for centuries — hate others because of their skin, shape of their eyes, or religious preference," Clary said at the time.
Retired from acting, Clary remained in good health and busy with his family, friends and his painting.
He was born Robert Widerman in Paris in March 1926, the youngest of 14 children. He was 16 when he and most of his family were taken by the Nazis.
In the documentary, Clary recalled a happy childhood until the family was forced from their Paris apartment and put into a crowded cattle car for transport to concentration camps.
"Nobody knew where we were going," Clary said. "We were not human beings anymore."
After 31 months in captivity, he was liberated from the Buchenwald death camp by U.S. troops. His youth and ability to work kept him alive, Clary said.
| | Cesspool or civility? Elon Musk's Twitter at a crossroads |
The discourse was never all that civil on Twitter. The loudest voices have often drowned out softer, more nuanced takes. After all, it's much easier to rage-tweet at a perceived enemy than to seek common ground, whether the argument is about transgender kids or baseball.
In the chaos that has enveloped Twitter the platform — and Twitter the company — since Elon Musk took over, it has become clear this isn't changing anytime soon. In fact, it's likely to get much worse before it gets better — if it gets better at all.
Musk, with his band of tech industry loyalists, arrived at Twitter just over a week ago ready to tear down the blue bird's nest and rebuild it in his vision with breakneck speed. He quickly fired top executives and the board of directors, installed himself as the company's sole director (for now) and declared himself "Chief Twit," then "Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator" on his bio.
On Friday, he began mass layoffs at the San Francisco-based company, letting go about half of its workers via email to return it to staffing levels not seen since 2014.
All the while, he's continued to tweet a mix of crude memes, half-jokes, SpaceX rocket launches and maybe-maybe not plans for Twitter that he seems to be workshopping on the site in real time. After floating the idea of charging users $20 a month for the "blue check" and some extra features, for instance, he appeared to quickly scale it back in a Twitter exchange with author Stephen King, who posted, "If that gets instituted, I'm gone like Enron."
"We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?" Musk replied. On Saturday, the company announced a subscription service for $7.99 monthly that allows anyone on Twitter to pay a fee for the check mark "just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow" as well as some premium features — not yet available — like getting their tweets boosted above those coming from accounts without the blue check.
The billionaire Tesla CEO also has repeatedly engaged with right-wing figures appealing for looser restrictions on hate and misinformation. He received congratulations from Dimitry Medvedev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's top associate, and tweeted — then deleted — a baseless conspiracy theory about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, who was attacked in his home.
More than three dozen advocacy organizations wrote an open letter to Twitter's top 20 advertisers, calling on them to commit to halting advertising on the platform if Twitter under Musk undermines "brand safety" and guts content moderation.
"Not only are extremists celebrating Musk's takeover of Twitter, they are seeing it as a new opportunity to post the most abusive, harassing, and racist language and imagery. This includes clear threats of violence against people with whom they disagree," the letter said.
One of Musk's first moves was to fire the woman in charge of trust and safety at the platform, Vijaya Gadde. But he has kept on Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity, and has taken steps to reassure users and advertisers that the site won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape" that some fear it might.
On Friday, he tweeted that "Twitter's strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline (asterisk)below(asterisk) our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press." A growing number of advertisers are nevertheless pausing spending on Twitter while they reassess how Musk's changes might increase objectionable material on the platform.
Musk also met with some civil rights leaders "about how Twitter will continue to combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies," according to a tweet he sent Nov. 1.
But representatives of the LGBTQ community were notably absent from the meeting, even though its members are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than those outside of such communities. Twitter did not respond to a message for comment on whether Musk plans to meet with LGBTQ groups.
The mercurial billionaire has said he won't make major decisions about content or restoring banned accounts — such as that of former President Donald Trump — before setting up a "content moderation council" with diverse viewpoints. The council, he later added, will include "the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence." But experts have pointed out that Twitter already has a trust and safety advisory council to address moderation questions.
"Truly I can't imagine how it would differ," said Danielle Citron, a University of Virginia law professor who sits on the council and has been working with Twitter since its infancy in 2009 to tackle online harms, such as threats and stalking. "Our council has the full spectrum of views on free speech."
Some amount of chaos is expected after a corporate takeover, as are layoffs and firings. But Musk's murky plans for Twitter — especially its content moderation, misinformation and hate speech policies — are raising alarms about where one of the world's most high-profile information ecosystems is headed. All that seems certain is that for now, at least, as Elon Musk goes, so goes Twitter.
"I hope that responsibility and maturity will win the day," said Eddie Perez, a former Twitter civic integrity team leader who left the company before Musk took over. "It's one thing to be a billionaire troll on Twitter and to try to get laughs with memes and to yuk it up. You are now the owner of Twitter and there's a new level of responsibility."
For now, though, the memes appear to be winning. This concerns experts like Perez, who worry Musk is moving too fast without listening to people who have been working to improve civility on the platform and instead using his own insular experience as one of the platform's most popular users with millions of fawning fans who hail his every move.
"You have a single billionaire that is controlling something as influential as a social media platform like Twitter. And you have entire nation states (whose) political goals are inimical to our own, and they are trying to create chaos and they are directly courting favor" with Musk, Perez said.
"There's just no world in which all of that is normal," he added. "That should absolutely concern us."
Twitter didn't start out as a cesspool. And even now there are pockets of funny, weird, nerdy subgroups on the platform that remain somewhat insulated from the messy and confrontational place it can appear to be if one follows too many hotheaded agitators. But as with Facebook, Twitter's rise also coincided with growing polarization and a measurable decline in online civility in the United States and beyond.
"The big understanding that occurred between 2008 and 2012 is that the way to get traction, the way to get attention on any social media, Twitter included, was to use incendiary language — to challenge the basic humanity of the opposition," said Lee Rainie, director of internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center.
Things continued to devolve as the 2016 U.S. presidential election approached and passed, and the new president cemented his reputation as one of Twitter's most incendiary users. After it was revealed that Russia used social media platforms to try to influence elections in the U.S. and other countries, the platforms themselves became central figures in the political debate.
"Do they have too much power? Do their content moderation policies privilege one side or another?" Rainie said. "The companies themselves found themselves in the thick of the most intense arguments in the culture. And so that's the environment that Elon Musk is entering now."
And beyond the bluster and the outsized personality, Musk's own description of his new job — "Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator" — may turn out to be his biggest challenge yet.
___ AP Technology Writer Frank Bajak contributed to this story.
 | Halloween FROM THIS |
- Halloween evolved out of a Catholic holiday called All Hallows Eve, which occurs the day before All Saints Day. All Saints Day was generally celebrated on November 1st after Pope Gregory changed it from its original date of May 13th. So Halloween was never a Christian holiday. It was the day before All Saints Day. In the Orthodox Church, All Saints Day continues to be celebrated in late spring on the first Sunday after Pentecost, which in turn is seven weeks after Easter.
- The Pilgrims banned the celebrating of Halloween in America because of its pagan roots. As a matter of fact, Halloween was not celebrated in America until 1845. And it is surrounded by the understanding that during this particular time, a large flood of Irish emigrants came to this country during the Potato Famine of 1845-46. They brought with them the old Druid holiday of Halloween. Gradually, celebrating Halloween spread throughout the rest of the country.
- Halloween is a day witches celebrate. The Maine State Prison allowed members of a witch coven (the Coven of Dawn) to hold a two-hour service on the feast day they call Samhain [Halloween], after the Druidic festival of year’s end. And it was stated that “this is our time to give praise to our lord and lady for the bountiful harvest,” said the founder of the ‘goddess- oriented’ coven.
- The fact is, Halloween and all its practices are associated with witchcraft. The bulk of the world has been desensitized to witchcraft evidenced by record breaking sales from movies like the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series. Almost every young person on the planet has seen Twilight. What is Twilight about? Vampires, and sorcery, and witchcraft and yet it is one of the highest grossing series in America movie history. And in the movie industry, it is second only to Harry Potter. And think, that’s amazing that this Christian society has spent so much money, along with the Brits, watching vampires, sorcerers, and witchcraft on the big screen and eating it up.
| | As the holidays near, tipping becomes more complicated |
Chris Knezevich used to be a bartender and likes to tip generously, especially during the holidays.
Besides a standard tip, he'll soon start bringing extra cash to his favorite restaurants.
"At Christmastime we like to pay it forward," said Knezevich, an instructor at the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management at the University of South Carolina. "We may bring $100 and we'll leave that $100 tip as a Christmas bonus."
He also gives $40 a person to his housecleaning service. It's his way of saying thank you.
For advice on how to tip during the holidays and all year long when traveling, dining out, getting a tattoo, we turned to Knezevich and other industry insiders for their ideas.
During the holidays The holidays are a good time to reward providers of services that don't necessarily involve regular gratuities, such as babysitters, day-care providers and personal trainers. "It helps them buy Christmas presents," Knezevich said.
Emily Post wrote her first book, "Etiquette," in 1922 and her eponymous family business now dispenses advice for all situations even as times change, including recommendations for tipping at the holidays.
First and foremost, consider your budget. When cash is tight, homemade gifts are an alternative and so is expressing your thanks in words.
Things to keep in mind for a cash tip are your relationship with the service provider and length of service. In some cases, such as if you want to tip a home health aide, check the rules of their agency.
When giving a cash tip, include it with a handwritten note, according to the Emily Post holiday tipping guide. Possible tips could be for a:
Babysitter: An evening's pay and a small gift from your children. Housekeeper: Up to one week's pay and/or a small gift.
Caregiver: Up to a week or month's pay or a gift. (Remember to check the employer's rules.)
Personal trainer: Up to the cost of one session or a gift.
Mail deliverer: U.S. Postal Service rules prohibit cash gifts and gift cards. Gifts worth $20 or less are permitted.
Travel, ride shares and hotels Do your research when outside the United States. "The one thing I'd caution is to make sure you do your research and know the culture," said Gunnar Olson, a travel reporter for Thrifty Traveler. "In Japan, for instance, tipping is offensive."
At home in the Twin Cities, when taking an Uber or Lyft, Olson tips 15% to 20% for the ride.
When he travels farther afield, he likes to carry small bills to make sure he can quickly give a couple of dollars to those who he encounters like shuttle drivers.
At hotels, Olson recommends tipping housekeeping by putting $1 to $5 in an envelope or with a note addressed to them. At higher-end hotels, the tip may range from $5 to $10.
"I would say leave it nightly because it's not always the same housekeeper," he said.
Give around $2 a bag plus $1 for each additional suitcase to a hotel employee who carries your luggage or $1 to $2 for hailing a cab, the Emily Post Institute suggests. Tip a valet $2 for bringing your car around.
Some cruise lines offer an optional gratuity fee up front. If you prefer to tip directly, you can skip that upfront cost and fill in the gratuity when signing off on charges along the way to reward good service.
"As far as fairness and making sure employees get all of it, I'd probably tip directly," Olson said.
Salon services Add tattoos to the list of services such as haircuts, massage and manicures where a tip of 15% to 20% should be given.
Knezevich recommends 18% to 20% and tips his own tattoo artist at the higher end. "He does amazing work."
The old standard used to be that tipping wasn't necessary for owners, but that has changed. "If the person owning the shop is giving me my haircut," Knezevich said, "I'm still going to tip them."
Takeout and meal delivery Technology has made the ask for tipping pop up everywhere. Despite screens presented with an ask to tip, there's no obligation to tip at a fast food restaurant, coffee shop or other carry-away experience. "If you're just taking it and putting it in a bag, I have a problem with them forcing tips on you," Knezevich said.
He makes exceptions if a takeout order was especially large and often tips for a chai tea made just the way he likes it.
"I like chai tea and I've come to learn not every chai tea is equal," Knezevich said. "If you make a really good chai tea, I'll give you a good tip. I'm thinking two or three dollars."
For delivery, the Emily Post Institute advises that a tip should be 10% to 15% of the delivery bill, or $2 to $5 for pizza delivery depending on the size of the order and difficulty involved in transporting it.
Grubhub suggests a more generous tip, saying its delivery fees don't go to the drivers, which is typical. So, the delivery platform advises a tip of 20% or $5, whichever is more, for a pizza or other food deliveries. Never tip less than $5 though, Grubhub said.
And Grubhub suggests considering adding another 3% to 5% in case of bad weather, if you're ordering several pizzas for an office party or if your location is difficult to access.
Dining out If not for tips, Marty Thomas, a bartender at Hoggsbreath in St. Paul, said he'd have to find another job. At the bar, he finds people giving him on average a dollar a drink if paying in cash or 15% to 20% when paying by credit card, which is more typical. Either is fine, he said. At a fine-dining establishment, consider $2 to $3 a drink if paying in cash, experts say. For table service during a buffet, the Emily Post Institute suggests a 10% tip.
The Institute advises tipping pre-tax. Many establishments in the Twin Cities now charge a wellness fee to cover health benefits. Use your own discretion whether you want to tip on these business costs as well as taxes.
Watch for service charges, which replace tipping with restaurant management having discretion on how the money is shared with staff. Any tip you leave in cash or on the tip line goes directly to servers under Minnesota law.
| | Find your ‘ikigai’ – your zest for life |
Occasionally, I receive correspondence from a reader that is so fascinating and useful that I want to share it with a wider audience. I am grateful to John Jay Pelletier, who sent me his book, "If You're Happy and You Know It, Keep It Up. If You're Not Happy, Whose Fault Is It?"
Pelletier, who describes himself as a 75-year-old world traveler, writes about "ikigai," 10 golden rules to happiness distilled from the wisdom of long-living residents of Ogimi, Japan. "Ikigai," pronounced "icky guy," is the title of a 2016 book written by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles.
These rules transcend international boundaries — it turns out I have been practicing them without even realizing it!
Here are the 10 rules:
Stay active. Don't ever retire. I have followed this advice religiously. The only grass that grows under my feet is on the golf course. When people ask me about retirement, I tell them I'm going with my boots on.
Take it slow, one day at a time. I'm not sure I take it slow, but I do go one day at a time. I don't dwell on the past.
Don't fill your stomach; have a good diet. I have always eaten healthy (with a lot of help from my wife, Carol Ann, for the last 60-plus years).
Surround yourself with good friends. I have friends I have known since grade school, high school and college, friends who started out as business contacts, golfing friends, friends who share my passion for community service, and friends I met last week. They are all important to me.
Stay in shape; keep moving. I have exercised all my life. It just makes me feel better, gives me energy to work more productively and, I hope, live longer. Back in the 1960s, I attended Stanford University for three months for its business executive program. Many people in the group were dedicated to running, and they asked me to join them. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Ten marathons later, I'm grateful for their invitation.
A smile shows a cheerful attitude. I learned years ago that one of the most powerful things you can do to connect with others is to smile at them.
Reconnect with Mother Nature. I am not really big on camping, biking and so on, but I have spent a great deal of my life outdoors on tennis courts and golf courses, plus running and walking.
Give thanks for what you have. Don't wait for Thanksgiving to take time to relax and enjoy time for togetherness. Build some extra time into your day so you can talk to family and friends and give thanks for being together.
Live the moment. The width of life is as important as the length. Be sure not to let making a living interfere with having a life.
Follow your ikigai — your dreams and passions. Passion is at the top of the list of the skills you need to excel in any undertaking. There is no substitute. Without it, there's no way you'll be able to work the long, hard hours it takes to become successful. The biggest challenge is not to add years to your life — but passion to your years.
Have you found your ikigai? It's never too late to start on a better path to living. Let these 10 rules put you on a good footing for a more fulfilling life.
Mackay's Moral: Happiness is an inside job.
Harvey Mackay is a Minneapolis businessman. Contact him at 612-378- 6202 or email harvey@mackay.com.
| | Technology will enable cars to foresee hazards |
Communication is key to any good relationship. But when it comes to vehicles and their owners, silence largely prevails.
Except for a few vague warning lights on the dashboard and side mirrors — plus a few sensor-based sounds in some recent models and, of course, car horns — drivers know nothing about what the vehicles and pedestrians around them are about to do.
A dangerous obstruction in the roadway, two cars about to move into the same lane or a bicycle coming out of a blind alley up ahead are a few potential surprises, with the driver often finding out about them too late — sometimes with deadly results.
By later this decade, many of such surprises are expected to change. Manufacturers are developing systems generically known as C-V2X — shorthand for cellular vehicle-to everything technology — for vehicles to communicate with one another and pedestrians, cyclists, construction workers (via wearable sensors or smartphones) and road infrastructure elements such as traffic lights.
With V2X technology, a car whose sensors or cameras detect a pothole in the roadway will be able to notify its driver, giving the driver time to take evasive maneuvers.
Highway workers will be alerted to an oncoming vehicle that's traveling too close to them. School bus drivers will be warned against letting children off if a vehicle fails to stop. And bicyclists (and drivers) will be made aware of one another before possible collisions.
"While passive safety such as seat belts and active safety from such things as lane departure warning has improved occupant safety, fatalities outside the vehicle are growing," said Anupam Malhotra, senior director of connected services for Audi of America. "We're now working to provide cooperative safety, sharing safety-related information with others."
Audi has spearheaded work in V2X technology, collaborating with the Virginia Department of Transportation and in Alpharetta, Ga., on tests that feature vehicles that can communicate with school buses, highway workers and cyclists. C-V2X test vehicles were able to detect stopped school buses, vehicles running a red light, construction workers in the roadway, and bicyclists in blind spots or attempting to turn in front of a turning vehicle.
And those vehicles and people could, in turn, detect the C-V2X vehicle.
In a recent demonstration of the technology at Audi's offices in Oxnard, Calif., a bicyclist equipped with a V2X sensor drove across the path of an Audi e-tron . Before the cyclist was visible to the driver, a warning sound and icon appeared on the instrument panel, giving the driver time to brake.
In addition to increased safety, vehicle communication can reduce driver anxiety.
Some Audi vehicles in 103 U.S. cities, using a different technology, can already communicate with traffic lights, with a countdown to a green light appearing on the instrument panel. Simply knowing when the light will change can make driving in stop-and-go traffic less stressful.
These alerts and warnings can be conveyed on a vehicle's instrument panel, a hand-held device placed in a jacket or even used on a smartphone. And it will be relatively easy for car manufacturers to incorporate automatic emergency braking into the V2X system.
V2X technology is expected to appear in vehicles as soon as the 2025 model year. But until there's a large population of vehicles using the system, the handful that are will largely be talking to themselves.
Some vehicles in China already offer V2X in certain locations and with limited features, such as warnings about possible collisions, blind spots, loss of control and traffic jams. And in Europe, certain Volkswagen models offer a different form of V2X technology known as Car2X; those vehicles can network directly with other VWs .
There are still hurdles to overcome, beyond the necessity of reaching a critical mass.
The U.S. government had initially recommended a mandate of V2X for new vehicles, but the recommendation was rescinded during the Trump administration.
The FCC said that C-V2X technology was rendered unnecessary by the increasing ubiquity of in-vehicle sensors and cameras, a position with which the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group, disagrees.
"We've had a 10-year battle with the FCC for radio spectrum," said Hilary Cain, vice president of technology, innovation and mobility policy at the alliance.
" We're currently including V2X in the development of our vehicle architecture, as we can't wait, and we need to be ready," said Mark Dahncke, Audi of America's director of product communications.
"The first person who sends us a letter saying 'You saved my life' will make it all worth it."
| | CLIMATE Hurricane season gets weird: Fiona, Ian and climate change’s effects on the strongest storms It was a quiet hurricane season, until it wasn’t.  |
This year’s Atlantic Ocean hurricane season has had a distinct whiplash vibe. It started in May with predictions of an above-average Atlantic hurricane season. June through August passed with barely a peep from the tropics, and then wham! — two significant, potentially devastating storms formed and struck parts of the U.S. within a week of one another.
First, Hurricane Fiona dropped 30 inches of rain on Puerto Rico and knocked power out to the entire island, and now Hurricane Ian is barreling toward the west coast of Florida, threatening a dangerous storm surge in Tampa, Fort Myers and elsewhere.
“It has been an unusual year,” said Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist and hurricane expert at Colorado State University. “We had no named storms in August for the first time since 1997, and since then we’ve had six named storms, four hurricanes and two major hurricanes.”
Climate change is undoubtedly altering hurricanes and their traditional season in a number of ways that often combine to make the storms more damaging than in the past. But Klotzbach said this particular off-and-on season is more likely due to natural variability. Hurricanes are big, relatively infrequent events, and up or down years, or strangely clustered storms, don’t say much about the changing climate on their own.
He pointed out that the four quietest Septembers in a row — Sept. 10 marks the climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season — came between 2013 and 2016, and then each September since 2017 has seen well-above-average activity. This year, specific conditions in August — in particular, strong wind shear, the change in wind direction and speed across varying altitudes — made it difficult for tropical storms to form.
“In September, we’ve had much more conducive conditions, with shear running near to below average,” Klotzbach said.
“Midlevel moisture has also increased somewhat, allowing for conditions where hurricanes can develop and thrive.” Bigger, stronger, faster The total number of Atlantic tropical cyclones has not increased dramatically over the last few decades. But they do seem to be getting more damaging:
Of the 15 costliest storms to hit the U.S., all but one have arrived this century. (Hurricane Andrew, in 1992, is the exception.) Why is that?
For one, climate change appears to be helping them get stronger, faster. “Analysis of hurricane observations over the last 40 years or so do suggest that rapid intensification of hurricanes has increased in the central-eastern Atlantic,” said Karthik Balaguru, a climate and data scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
He led a 2018 study that found that the number of hurricanes in that central and eastern part of the ocean that increased in wind speed by 25 knots or more over 24 hours — defined as rapid intensification — increased significantly between 1986 and 2015. That’s because the upper ocean has gotten substantially warmer, and wind shear has decreased. Two of the three most damaging U.S. hurricanes in history, both in 2017, underwent such rapid intensification.
Hurricane Harvey struck the Houston area, causing $125 billion in damage, after intensifying from a tropical storm all the way to a Category 4 hurricane over the course of less than two days.
The next month, Hurricane Maria’s wind speeds nearly doubled, going from a Category 1 storm to Category 5 in under 24 hours just before slamming into Puerto Rico.
New research that is yet to be published, Balaguru added, will show that such rapid strengthening in the “near-coastal” region is also now occurring more frequently, meaning even a relatively slow-moving hurricane is more likely to ramp up in power just before landfall, catching a city or region by surprise.
Another study, from 2019, found that greenhouse gases can reduce wind shear specifically along the Atlantic coast, eroding a sort of natural barrier to hurricane intensification that the region previously enjoyed. This means that in the future, storms that approach the East Coast may reach land much stronger than past hurricanes have managed. A riskier hurricane landscape
The potential for near-shore rapid intensification, Balaguru said, can also be blamed on climate change, with an increasing contrast in temperatures over land and sea. “This has lots of implications for decision-makers, people living in coastal regions, critical coastal infrastructure and for operational forecasting,” he said. “These conditions will also increase the change of flooding after landfall.”
In Florida this week, forecasters have warned of catastrophic storm surge potential as Ian bears down. Along with the changes to the hurricanes themselves, rising sea levels also increase damage, with a higher baseline meaning that the surges will reach higher than they previously could.
This is bad news for Florida and the Tampa area in particular, where 3 million people live in a low-lying, dense area that has seen the seas rise by more than nine inches over the last 75 years or so.
A 2013 World Bank study included the city on its list of the 10 cities most vulnerable to catastrophic flooding; an analysis in 2016 suggested Tampa’s damage could reach $175 billion with a direct hurricane hit.
A warmer atmosphere can also hold more moisture, so the total amount of rainfall from any given storm is potentially higher. Though there are too few storms to make firm conclusions, there is also a trend toward an earlier start to the hurricane season, with more storms forming in May in recent years than in the past.
Taken together, climate change is obviously altering hurricanes enough to make them even more dangerous than in the past.
As Puerto Rico struggles to restore power and Florida battens down the hatches and waits, that has never been more clear.
Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.
Dave Levitan Climate Reporter Dave Levitan is a climate reporter for Grid where he focuses on interconnected stories about climate and science, and politics shaping action around both. davelevitan
 | Lithium race hinges on battle over mine  |
The high-desert mountain pass overlooking alfalfa fields and RV parks doesn't look like a battleground that will shape the country's clean-energy future.
But when the rock samples here are pulverized, pulled apart and mixed with chemicals, they yield a metal increasingly seen as white gold: lithium, a critical ingredient for batteries used in electric vehicles, solar energy storage and consumer electronics.
In early 2021, the Trump administration approved plans for a $1 billion open-pit mine at Nevada's Thacker Pass, in a swath of government-owned land that covers 9 square miles above the country's largest lithium deposit. The Biden administration has since defended that decision.
Supporters say the mine built by Lithium Americas, a Canadian multinational, could produce enough lithium each year to match 2020's total global output. They also argue that expediting U.S. battery manufacturing will help the country shift away from fossil fuels .
But the project has run into fierce local opposition.
A judge is weighing a bid to block the mine brought by an unlikely coalition: a rancher who contends the operation will consume precious groundwater that sustains his herd; environmental groups that support electric vehicles but see the vast mining operation as too destructive; and tribal members determined to preserve the legacy, lifestyle and land of their ancestors.
The outcome will ripple beyond this corner of Nevada. As the Energy Department implements a $7 billion battery supply chain program and Congress' climate bill rolls out tax credits for electric-car makers, some see the state as ground zero for the fledgling industry.
"We can become the Lithium Valley here, based on everything else we have," said Dev Chidambaram, an engineering professor at the University of Nevada at Reno who started one of the country's first battery and energy storage academic programs. "It's better we do this, rather than somebody else."
The striking landscape on the Nevada- Oregon border that defines the Great Basin is loaded with treasures — gold, silver, mercury, uranium — that for centuries drew prospectors looking to strike it rich. It also provides a crucial habitat for sage grouse, raptors, golden eagles, elk and bighorn sheep, and features a sea of sagebrush and grasses that sustain grazing cattle herds.
Only one U.S. lithium mine operates today: Albemarle's Silver Peak in southwestern Nevada.
In recent years, Lithium Americas' predecessor company developed a plan to also extract it around Thacker Pass. That coincided with Washington's push to wean off imports from adversarial countries — extracting and processing lithium has been cheaper in South America and China — and rising demand from EV makers.
Global lithium prices soared more than 400% in 2021, and the surge looks likely to continue. For mining companies, the race is on to win approvals and keep pace.
Thacker Pass sits amid a largely rural area with an economy focused on agriculture, mining and roadside businesses that cater to travelers along Route 95 .
Maxine Redstar is chairwoman for the area's Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe. The pandemic had shut down tribal council offices and limited interaction, so she didn't learn the Trump administration had approved the mine until a few weeks after the decision in early 2021, she said. It felt like a slap in the face.
"I reached out to [Bureau of Land Management] and said: 'OK, hang on. Let's back up,'" Redstar recalled .
Her goal was to protect the land and water. The reservation's drinking water is still contaminated by a mercury mine that closed in the 1970s .
But she also thought about the project's potential to lift the next generation. Through 2021, Redstar had meetings with the Biden-led land bureau and mine officials. She left with assurances the site would be well regulated.
At the same time, tribal members who opposed the mine were building momentum. They formed People of Red Mountain and joined other tribal groups .
Last year, they joined forces with Edward Bartell , a rancher who has lived in the area since 2008, tending to more than 500 cattle that graze on BLM-leased land in the mountains above the Lithium Americas site and on 960 acres he owns below the site.
Trucks would haul sulfur within feet of the elementary school where his wife, Brenda, teaches. Two 350-foot-high dumps with a capacity of 354 million cubic yards of mine waste would tower over the dirt road he uses to check on his grazing cattle in the mountains.
"They put this eco-friendly label on it," Bartell said. "We see it as an environmental nightmare."
In February 2021, Bartell and his ranch sued the bureau over its decision, alleging "irreparable harm" to fish, wildlife, wetlands and stream flows .
By last summer, the People of Red Mountain and two other tribal groups had joined the case .
In Washington, the $369 billion climateand-tax law enacted in August includes tax credits for electric vehicles that, by the end of 2023, source 40% of their battery minerals from North America or U.S. trade partners.
For tribal member Daranda Hinkey, 24, the Thacker Pass project has been a possible blessing in disguise. It brought the college graduate home to the reservation where her father grew up and has mobilized people who had never been active in Indigenous rights.
"In our ceremonies, we pray to water, we pray with water," she said . "The environmental concerns are cultural concerns. I don't see the line between them."
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