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Border agents seen in controversial photos on horseback not yet questioned: Source

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Border Patrol agents at the center of a controversy stemming from their use of horses to block Haitian migrants from entering the U.S. have not yet been questioned more than a month after the incident took place, according to a law enforcement official.

Images of mounted patrol agents using their horses to push back migrants, mostly Haitian, stirred national controversy as an unprecedented number attempted to cross the Rio Grande into the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, in September. The Department of Homeland Security launched an internal investigation into the matter shortly after the images came out.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised a swift investigation into the horse patrol over a month ago, assuring lawmakers it would yield findings days later. As of publication, and despite multiple requests for comment from ABC News, the administration has not publicly announced any findings.

Preliminary findings from Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility have been handed over to the Justice Department to determine if criminal charges are warranted, according to two officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.

One law enforcement official said the internal investigation could not proceed, and the agents directly involved could not be interviewed, until the U.S. attorney makes a determination.

Referrals to U.S. attorneys are common in federal law enforcement personnel matters and do not necessarily indicate that criminal charges are being considered. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, which includes Del Rio, declined to comment.

“The investigation is ongoing,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. “The Department is committed to a thorough, independent, and objective process. We are also committed to transparency and will release the results of the investigation once it is complete.”

Advocates for both migrants and the agents have been frustrated with the pace of the investigation so far.

Karen Tumlin, founder of the Justice Action Center, said a central concern is that the government has deported potential witnesses to federal police brutality in the time it has taken to conduct the investigation.

“[The delay] creates an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ issue,” Tumlin said. “That was their intention.”

Over the two-week period that migrants surged into Del Rio, border officials stopped about 29,000 of them, according to the Department of Homeland Security. More than 15,000 either returned to Mexico on their own or were sent to Haiti on rapid expulsion flights. About 1,800 were placed in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and some 13,000 were released on conditions to report back to authorities.

Jon Anfinsen, a Border Patrol agent and union leader, confirmed the mounted patrol agents remain on administrative duties, which he said has impacted the unit’s ability to perform their normal patrol work.

The horse patrol appears to be back up and running in Del Rio, Texas, despite silence from the Biden administration on the results of the internal probe. Use of the horse patrol was stopped at the Del Rio International Bridge in the days following the confrontations.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was unequivocal in announcing the end to the use of Border Patrol horses in Del Rio last month, calling it a “policy change.” DHS officials clarified at the time that it was only a temporary suspension.

“The secretary also conveyed to civil rights leaders earlier this morning that we would no longer be using horses in Del Rio,” Psaki said at a Sept. 23 White House press briefing. “So that is something — a policy change that has been made in response.”

A CBP official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly disputed Psaki’s characterization.

“They pulled all horse patrol agents for maybe a day or so to process,” the official said referring to the administrative duties agents are required to perform when migrants flood the area. “Then it was right back to normal sector-wide, with the exception of a couple more agents under scrutiny.”

A photo posted to the USBP Del Rio Sector’s Facebook page on Oct. 7 shows Border Patrol agents on horseback detaining a group of men huddled on the ground.

Black men in ‘Groveland Four’ case may get rape convictions, indictments dismissed

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(GROVELAND, Fla.) — More than 70 years after four Black men were accused of raping a white woman in 1949, Florida State Attorney Bill Gladson has filed a motion to posthumously clear the “Groveland Four” of their criminal records.

“Even a casual review of the record reveals that these four men were deprived of the fundamental due process rights that are afforded to all Americans,” Gladson wrote in his motion filed Monday. “The evidence strongly suggests that a sheriff, a judge, and prosecutor all but guaranteed guilty verdicts in this case.”

Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin, all young Black men, were accused of raping a 17-year-old white woman in the central Florida town of Groveland. Following the accusation, an angry mob shot and killed Thomas before he could be arrested. Records show that the indictment against him was never dismissed by the court, according to Gladson’s motion.

Greenlee, Shepherd and Irvin were all put to trial and convicted.

Greenlee, who was 16 years old at the time, received a recommendation of mercy from the jury and received a life sentence. He did not appeal the verdict.

Irvin and Shepherd were sentenced to death and successfully made an appeal. In 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated their convictions and ordered a new trial for each. Following the new indictment, Florida Sheriff Willis McCall shot and killed Shepherd and attacked and injured Irvin. Shepherd’s indictment, like Thomas’, was never dismissed. Irvin was retried, convicted and again sentenced to death, but later had his sentence commuted to life in prison.

Gladson filed the motion to dismiss the indictments of Thomas and Shepherd, and set aside and vacate the judgments and sentences of Greenlee and Irvin.

Several pieces of troubling information highlighted the problematic nature of their charges and convictions. Gladson argues that the state never had Irvin’s pants tested for the presence of semen, even though they could have, and instead left the jury with the impression that Irvin’s pants contained evidence of the rape.

The qualification of the prosecution’s star witnesses, who made shoe and tire casts from the scene, has also been called into question. One of the defense’s expert witnesses stated in the second trial that one of the casts was manufactured to falsely link Irvin to the scene.

Gladson also noted an email from the grandson of the state attorney who prosecuted the Groveland Four case that says state attorney Jesse Hunter and trial judge Truman Futch knew at the time of the second trial that there was no rape.

Now, if the court grants the Gladson’s motion, the legal presumption of innocence for these four men would be restored.

“While we are thankful the Florida Legislature apologized and the Board of Executive Clemency granted pardons, full justice depends on action from the judicial branch,” Carol Greenlee said in a statement. “I hope this motion will result in that full justice for my father Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis granted posthumous pardons to the men in 2019.

This isn’t the first time Black men may have been falsely or unfairly convicted for similar incidents.

In 1972, Federal District Judge Charles R. Scott vacated the convictions of Robert Shuler and Jerry Chatman, two Black men who were convicted of raping a white woman in Florida. The retrial was ordered when the woman hinted the assault may never have been committed.

In the 1980s, the Exonerated Five, previously known as the Central Park Five, were a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers who were convicted and later exonerated in connection with the rape and brutal assault on a white female jogger in New York.

Queen Elizabeth to skip climate summit in Scotland as she recovers after hospitalization

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will not travel to Scotland next week as planned as she continues to follow doctors’ advice to rest.

The queen had been scheduled to attend an evening reception next Monday at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow.

Instead, Queen Elizabeth, 95, will stay at Windsor Castle and deliver an address to attendees via a recorded video message, Buckingham Palace said in a statement Tuesday.

The palace noted the queen was “disappointed not to attend” and said she has been “undertaking light duties” at Windsor Castle and “following advice to rest.”

The queen spent one night in the hospital last week for “preliminary investigations.” She was released the next day, on Oct. 21, and was back at her desk at Windsor Castle that afternoon, a palace spokesperson confirmed last week.

The queen made her first public appearance since her hospitalization on Tuesday, when she held a virtual audience at Windsor Castle to receive South Korea’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Gunn Kim.

The queen, wearing a yellow dress and a pearl necklace, spoke with the ambassador via video link from the royal residence in England’s Berkshire county, where she has been staying since her hospitalization.

Last week, Queen Elizabeth hosted a reception at Windsor Castle for a global investment summit where she met with leaders, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.

Just prior to her hospitalization, Queen Elizabeth was also forced to cancel a trip to Northern Ireland under orders from her medical team to rest.

Confederate statue hiding in plain sight near trial of 3 white men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — A statue of a Confederate soldier holding a rifle in a park less than a mile from the Georgia courthouse where three white men are on trial for killing Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, has been hidden in plain sight, wrapped in sheets of plastic apparently to protect it from vandalism.

The monument that has stood for 119 years in the center of Hanover Square in Brunswick, Georgia, has become a lightning rod for discourse in the Glynn County community since Arbery was allegedly chased down and fatally shot in 2020 while, according to prosecutors, he was out for a Sunday jog.

Brunswick City Manager Regina McDuffie said the marble statue was wrapped in plastic by a local resident.

“A private citizen wanted to try to ensure the statue was not damaged since we just started the trial in the Arbery case,” McDuffie told ABC Jacksonville, Florida, affiliate WJXX. “It is not the city’s plan. We don’t have anything to do with it as far as how long it will stay [wrapped].”

The Brunswick City Commission voted in November 2020 to remove that statue, but no timeline was set. A Georgia Court of Appeals ruling in August that denied a motion to block the removal of Confederate monuments paved the way for the city to uproot the statue.

The statue was vandalized last year, spray-painted with the letters BLM (Black Lives Matter) on its pedestal.

The murder trial of the three men who prosecutors allege chased down and shot Arbery to death on Feb. 23, 2020, in the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick began last week with jury selection.

The accused are Gregory McMichael, 65, a retired police officer, his son, Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52.

The three men have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.

The jury selection phase of the trial went into its sixth day on Tuesday. No jurors have been selected yet for the high-profile trial, which is expected to last a month.

About 1,000 Glynn County residents received jury-duty summonses in the case. Attorneys are attempting to whittle that number down to a pool of 64 qualified prospective jurors, of which 16, including four alternates, will be seated to hear the case. As of Tuesday afternoon, 32 would-be jurors have been chosen for the qualified pool.

Bryan’s attorney Kevin Gough claimed in court on Tuesday that protests occurring outside the courthouse are having undue influence on potential jurors. Gough asked Chatham County Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley, who was appointed to preside over the Glynn County trial, to “ban all protest or First Amendment activity from this area until the conclusion of this trial.”

Walmsley denied the motion.

Water levels jump back up in West after long drought

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A weekend storm that brought extreme atmospheric river and historic rain to Northern California has raised water levels in several water bodies, namely Lake Tahoe, Lake Oroville and Yosemite Falls.

Yosemite Falls, which was announced to be “dry” last week by the Yosemite National Park, is back in action with flowing water after receiving at least 5 inches of rainfall from the weekend storm. Webcam footage from the park shows that the falls have water flowing through them again.

Following suit, water levels at Lakes Tahoe and Oroville in California have also risen as a result of the historic rainfall. The water level at Lake Tahoe rose above its natural rim at 6,223 feet after having fallen to approximately 6,222.88 feet.

Water levels at Lake Oroville currently stand at 656.01 feet above mean sea level after this weekend’s storm. Over the summer the lake reached a historic low amid exceptional drought causing the state’s Department of Water Resources to take a hydroelectric plant offline.

While the storm brought heavy downpour to the West coast, it didn’t alleviate the region from its climate concern of droughts and wildfires.

Several counties in California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada faced flooding, power outages and property damage. The storm also caused the deaths of two people in Fall City, Washington.

The storm is now headed to the mainland and East Coast, where states have already declared a state of emergency over flash flood warnings. Severe weather is expected in the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey and New York.

Nor’easter drenching New York City, New Jersey, New England with heavy rain: Latest forecast

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — 4From North Carolina to Maine, 45 million Americans are under alert for flooding rain and gusty winds as a nor’easter pummels the East Coast.

In New York and New Jersey, where governors declared states of emergency, roadways were drenched early Tuesday with up to 4 inches of rain.

Flash flooding was reported Tuesday morning in the Metuchen, New Jersey, area, prompting a flash flood warning. Water rescues were reported in New Jersey from Union Beach to Middletown.

The bulk of the heaviest rain and flooding then shifted to Long Island and Connecticut. The heaviest rain Tuesday afternoon will be across New England.

The nor’easter will strengthen off the coast by Tuesday evening, bringing another round of heavy rain from northern New Jersey to New York City to southeast New England.

The strongest winds are expected overnight from the Jersey Shore to Long Island to Cape Cod. Gusts could reach 60 to 70 mph.

The rain will end across most of the Northeast Tuesday night, with lingering showers expected in New England Wednesday morning. The storm will move out to sea Wednesday afternoon.

9-year-old boy’s remains found in home with abandoned siblings, death ruled homicide

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(HOUSTON) — The remains of a 9-year-old boy have been discovered in a Houston home along with his three abandoned siblings, authorities said.

One of the children, a 15-year-old, called the authorities and said his 9-year-old brother had been dead for one year and his body was in the room next to his, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Monday.

The Harris County Medical Examiner’s office said the boy’s manner of death was a homicide, according to ABC Houston station KTRK-TV.

The 15-year-old and the other two children — boys under the age of 10 — were found home alone on Sunday, the sheriff said.

Both younger kids “appeared malnourished and showed signs of physical injury,” he tweeted.

Deputies also “found skeletal remains of a small child,” the sheriff said.

All three children were taken to the hospital, he said. Their conditions were not released.

Authorities believe the parents hadn’t lived in the home for several months, Gonzalez said.

The children’s mother and her boyfriend were found late Sunday night and have been interviewed and released, Gonzalez said Monday.

The investigation is ongoing, the sheriff said, adding that no charges have been filed.

At a news conference Sunday Gonzalez called it a “horrific situation.”

“I have been in this business for a long time and I had never heard of a scenario like this,” he said.

COVID-19 live updates: Unvaccinated Americans continue to drive infection, death rates

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 737,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 67.2% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Latest headlines:
-Biden administration to ship vaccines for children as soon as FDA approves them
-FDA panel hours away from vote on Pfizer vaccine for kids
-US sees 7th straight week of drop in daily pediatric cases

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.

Oct 26, 2:37 pm
Biden administration to ship vaccines for children as soon as FDA approves them

The Biden administration will begin shipping vaccine doses for kids ages 5 to 11 as soon as the Food and Drug Administration gives the green light in coming days, White House officials told governors on a private phone call Tuesday.

Doing so will allow children to begin receiving shots as soon as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off, which is expected around Nov. 4.

Jeff Zients, the White House coordinator on the federal response to COVID-19, said one big concern is the shorter shelf life for pediatric doses. In trying to make the vaccine easier for pediatricians to handle, the doses for kids 5 to 11 can be kept for only 10 weeks, compared with six to nine months for adult doses.

“We don’t want to have wastage, so we encourage you to build flexibility into your distribution systems you can move around within your state or territory,” he told the governors. Audio of the call was obtained by ABC News. “Just order what you need. We have plenty of supply. We can always get you doses on short notice.”

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty

Oct 26, 12:00 pm
Kids 5 to 11 account for 8,300 hospitalizations

Officials with the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention opened Tuesday’s FDA panel meeting by explaining how children 5 to 11 years old are impacted by the pandemic. They have accounted for over 1.9 million infections and over 8,300 hospitalizations, about a third of which have required ICU stays, officials said.

Nearly 100 children in that age group have died from COVID-19, making the virus one of the top 10 causes of death in this age range at this time, officials said.

The independent FDA advisory panel on Tuesday is debating whether to authorize the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. The panel’s nonbinding vote is expected Tuesday evening.

After the panel votes on whether or not to recommend Pfizer, the FDA will make a decision. Then, the matter heads to the CDC’s independent advisory panel to deliberate and vote, which is scheduled for Nov. 2 and Nov. 3. Once the CDC panel votes, the CDC director is expected to make the final signoff.

ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik

Oct 26, 10:18 am
Unvaccinated Americans continue to drive infection, death rates: Federal data

The five states with the highest death rates over the last week — Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, West Virginia and Idaho — are also among the states with the lowest full vaccination rates, according to federal data.

People who have not been fully vaccinated are 6.1 times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 and 11.3 times more likely to die from the virus, according to federal data.

Approximately 63.2 million eligible Americans have yet to get the shot, according to federal data.

But hospitalization rates are continuing to steadily trend down, with just over 51,000 Americans now hospitalized with the virus, compared to 104,000 people hospitalized in late August, according to federal data.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Oct 26, 9:11 am
FDA panel hours away from vote on Pfizer vaccine for kids

An independent FDA advisory panel on Tuesday will debate and vote on whether to authorize the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. The nonbinding vote is expected between 4:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. ET.

Pfizer data submitted to the FDA has shown that this vaccine, which would be administered to children at one-third of the adult dosage, is nearly 91% effective against symptomatic COVID-19. There were no reported adverse side effects in the clinical trial group.

After the panel votes on whether or not to recommend this vaccine for children 5 to 11, the FDA will make a decision.

Then, the matter heads to the CDC’s independent advisory panel to deliberate and vote, which is scheduled for Nov. 2 and Nov. 3. Once the CDC panel votes, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to make the final sign-off.

The earliest shots could be in arms is the first week of November.

ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik

Jelani Day’s cause of death was drowning, coroner says

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(CHICAGO) — Jelani Day’s death is said to have been caused by drowning, according to the LaSalle County Coroner’s Office. The 25-year-old college student went missing in August, while studying to be a doctor at Illinois State University.

Day was last seen on Aug. 24 at the university’s campus in Bloomington, Illinois. His parents reported him missing on Aug. 25 and his car was found two days later in Peru, Illinois.

Day was found dead, floating in the Illinois River on Sept. 4. His body was not identified until weeks later by the LaSalle County Coroner, on Sept. 23.

“Unfortunately, there is no specific positive test at autopsy for drowning,” coroner Richard Ploch’s statement read Tuesday. “Drowning is considered a diagnosis of exclusion with supporting investigation circumstances when a person is found deceased in a body of water.”

The coroner did not find any evidence of intoxication or injury in the forensic autopsy — no signs of an assault, altercation, strangulation or more — and it remains unknown how Day ended up in the Illinois River.

Day’s family still suspects foul play in the young man’s death, and said that his personal belongings were found scattered away from where his body was found.

“Jelani did not just disappear into thin air. Somebody knows something, somebody seen something and I need somebody to say something,” Day’s mother, Carmen Bolden Day, told “Good Morning America” on Sept. 29.

The case is still being investigated by local police jurisdictions in the area, along with the FBI.

Siberia’s permafrost melt is causing swamps, lakes, making land difficult to live on

October 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(YAKUTSK, Russia) — Thirty years ago, the road out from the village of Mai was flat. So were the fields around it, enough that local people used to play football on them.

But today, the road and fields around this town in the remote Siberian region of Yakutia, are strangely warped, an expanse of wavy ground and weird bubble-like mounds, that a drive over will bounce passengers out of their seats.

“This plot of land was very flat. In 1994, we played football, volleyball on it,” Petr Yefremov, a local scientist who grew up in the village, told ABC News. “And you see, in that time, it’s fallen like that.”

The odd ground around the village is a sign of how in Siberia climate change is literally re-shaping the landscape, as rapidly warming temperatures start to alter what has long been a given in much of Russia’s vast hinterland: that the ground is frozen.

Around two-thirds of Russia is covered by permafrost — permanently frozen ground that never thaws, even during summers. It runs from just below the surface of much of Siberia for sometimes thousands of meters underground, kept frozen by the region’s fierce colds.

But Siberia is warming and faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. Russia’s average annual temperatures are currently rising two and a half times faster than the global average, according to Russian government data.

In Yakutia, the vast region where Mai is located, the warming is causing permafrost to start thawing. As it does, swamps and lakes are mushrooming around the region, as well as the strange landscapes like that around the village.

“The changes are noticeable,” Pavel Konstatinov, head of the laboratory at the Melnikov Permafrost Institute in Yakutia’s capital Yakutsk, about 3,000 miles from Moscow, told ABC News.

Stretching down from the Arctic, Yakutia would be larger than most countries if it was independent and is one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, with winter temperatures routinely reaching below -70 Fahrenheit.

But Yakutia’s average temperatures have risen by around 2 to 3 degrees Celsius in the past 40 years, according to local scientists. Like much of the Arctic, it is already well ahead of the 1.5 degrees Celsius that scientists have said the earth’s temperature must not breach to avoid already catastrophic climate change.

Yakutia is seeing milder winters — though still bitterly cold — and in summer increasingly extreme heat, according to Russian government meteorological data. For the past four years, it has suffered record drought and heatwaves, which this summer contributed to colossal wildfires, some of the biggest ever anywhere in recorded history.

“Since the start of the 1980s, it has very sharply increased and the average annual air temperature for five years has jumped up 2, 3 degrees and until now stands at that level,” said Konstantinov.

Yefremov, also a scientist at the Permafrost Institute, has studied permafrost for three decades. He and a team from the institute have sunk temperature monitors several meters into the permafrost near Mai.

Yefremov said that when the team first took measurements in the mid-1990s, the frozen soil’s temperature 10 meters below ground was around -3. Now, it is closer to -1, he said.

“You see already how much it has fallen. Within 30 years, it’s fallen from -3 to -1 degrees,” he told ABC News during a visit to the monitors in August.

As the permafrost melts, it retreats further beneath the surface. In places like Mai, the receding ice leaves hollows underground. Over time, the top layer of earth begins to fall in, leaving little valleys that create the strange, uneven mounds. From above, the files look almost like giant scales. Eventually, the mounds all fall in together to form large pits that usually become lakes.

The land affected becomes largely useless for agriculture or building.

The amount of thawing in Yakutia varies drastically from place to place, depending on other ground conditions. It is far faster in areas where the permafrost is mixed with unfrozen ground and where there is water and some human activities.

Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said that there was not yet “massive thawing” of permafrost but that we are now crossing the threshold into it.

“Ten or 20 years from now, that will be a different picture,” he told ABC News. “If the trajectory will continue the same— we will have massive thawing of permafrost in warmer, discontinuous permafrost zone.”

“Discontinuous” permafrost refers to areas where it is mixed with stretches of unfrozen land, unlike parts of the Arctic where the permafrost stretches as an unbroken mass.

Romanovsky said in Alaska, where conditions are somewhat different to Yakutia, he estimated around 50% of permafrost in the state’s interior had begun to show signs of thawing in the past five years.

Scientists at Yakutia’s Permafrost Institute this year estimated as much of 40% of Yakutia’s territory is at risk of “dangerous” melting. Permafrost Konstantinov said some projections suggested even in moderate scenarios, a third to a quarter of southern Yakutia’s permafrost would melt by the end of the century.

Some scientists worry that it also poses a profound threat for the rest of the world. The frozen soil holds hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse gases, like methane and CO2, which are released as it slowly thaws.

The fear is that as the thawing unlocks more of the gases, they will further warm the planet, in turn triggering more melting. The amount of gases held in the permafrost dwarf those already put into the atmosphere by humans, and the fear of a cataclysmic feedback loop has led some scientists to call Siberia’s melting permafrost a possible “methane time bomb.”

Scientists caution there is still insufficient evidence to know how much melting greenhouse gas could be released by melting permafrost, but most experts believe it is a concern.

In Russia, the shifting ground is already posing enormous consequences, putting at risk roads, buildings and infrastructure across Siberia.

When frozen, permafrost is as hard as concrete and so most buildings in Yakutsk are constructed without foundations.

For that reason in Yakutsk, most buildings sit on stilts that raise them about a meter off the ground. Otherwise, heat from the buildings would thaw the permafrost beneath them, essentially turning their foundations into sand and causing them to subside.

Some older buildings in Yakutsk give a preview of what happens when the permafrost melts under them.

On a central street, one block is slowly collapsing. Huge cracks started appearing in the walls around five years ago. Local authorities declared the building unsafe for habitation a few years ago. Residents said and some of them had already been re-settled, but others remained, unable to find anywhere else to go.

Fedor Markov lives and works in a studio in one of the building’s upper floors. He is a sculptor of miniatures made from mammoth tusks, fragments of which are widely found across Yakutia, where the permafrost sometimes preserves Ice Age creatures almost entirely intact. Markov’s studio has large cracks in its walls and ceiling, including a gaping hole in its plaster, he said was caused by the building subsiding.

“The house is shaking,” said Markov.

In another neighborhood further out of the city, residents have had to abandon a group of older barracks buildings. One building has a huge crack running to the roof, splitting the structure almost in half.

Russia’s government has estimated the damage from the melting ground could cost tens of billions of dollars and there are increasing calls for action to mitigate the effects.

“Yakutia is already not like Yakutia,” Markov said. “In general, nature was excellent in my childhood. Summer was summer, winter was winter. Even though it was strong frosts, the people all the same could put up with it. Now we’re starting to get scared,” he said.

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