EU leaders agree plan for partial Russian oil ban - Financial Times

EU leaders agreed to a partial ban on Russian oil imports, while exempting a key supply route to win the support of Hungary, as they seek ways of punishing Vladimir Putin for his war on Ukraine.

The embargo will include oil and petroleum products but will exempt crude delivered by pipeline to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, diplomats said.

The deal, which came at a late-night summit in Brussels on Monday, should pave the way for EU agreement on a heavily delayed sixth package of sanctions that also includes measures hitting Russian banks and further individuals.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council of member states, hailed the deal in a tweet, saying that it was “cutting a huge source of financing for [Russia’s] war machine” and would deliver “maximum pressure on Russia to end the war”.

But the agreement was won only after weeks of haggling between member states, and at a cost of significant concessions offered to Hungary and its neighbours, as capitals weighed the rising economic costs of multiple rounds of sanctions on Russia.

Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, said the deal proved that the EU was united. He added: “We have agreed on further far-reaching sanctions against Russia. There will be an embargo on the majority of Russian oil imports.”

Capitals have not settled how long any carve-out of Russian oil supplied via pipeline would last.

The ban will include seaborne oil purchases, which cover about two-thirds of Europe’s imports from Russia. In addition, pledges from Germany and Poland to stop oil imports via the northern part of the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline are expected to take coverage of the ban to 90 per cent by the end of the year.

Keeping pipelines out of any embargo has been a key demand of Hungary, which has argued that a ban would put its economy at risk, given its reliance on Russian crude. Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, also secured measures to ensure that Budapest can still obtain Russian oil from other sources if there was an “accident” with Druzhba, which crosses Ukraine.

The partial ban risks distorting competition in the EU oil market, with refineries connected to pipelines from Russia enjoying a price advantage. The price of Russian oil has fallen to a huge discount as European traders have shunned the country’s seaborne crude since the invasion of Ukraine.

If exports via Druzhba are at the pipeline’s maximum capacity of 750,000 barrels a day, it would help Russia earn in the region of $2bn a month from EU buyers.

Russian Urals crude is trading at about $93 a barrel, compared with $120 for Brent, the international oil benchmark. While Russian oil delivered via Druzhba may not carry such a big discount, depending on how contracts are structured, Hungarian oil group Mol has said it has enjoyed “skyrocketing” margins for its refineries since March because of the “widening Brent-Ural spread”.

EU diplomats said there would be a ban on the resale of refined products made from Russian crude as part of efforts to minimise market distortions, with some countries enjoying a longer phase-in period. There will also be a prohibition on offering services, including the financing of oil shipments, diplomats said.

Volumes shipped via Druzhba have actually increased since Russia invaded Ukraine, with buyers in the EU taking advantage of the large discounts or to stock up ahead of any embargo.

Argus, an energy-price reporting agency, said that while seaborne shipments from Russia to Europe had fallen by 500,000 b/d, Druzhba shipments had risen by 100,000 b/d in April compared with January and were expected to increase again in May. Hungary has increased shipments by 65,000 b/d, while Poland has imported an additional 130,000 b/d, helping to more than offset declines elsewhere.

The sanctions package includes the ejection of Sberbank from the Swift messaging system as well as restrictions on more state-owned Russian broadcasters and a new round of asset freezes and travel bans on individuals.

Brussels proposed an embargo on buying Russian oil in early May, underlining the EU’s difficulties in finding a way to increase its punishment on Moscow for its war on Ukraine while not damaging parts of the European economy that depend on Russian energy. The EU has already banned Russian coal but exempted gas from sanctions.

However, Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy company, has cut supplies to Poland, the Netherlands and Bulgaria for refusing to pay for gas in roubles.

Additional reporting by Victor Mallet in Brussels, Eleni Varvitsioti in Athens, and David Sheppard in London

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2022-05-30 23:16:32Z
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EU leaders agree plan for partial Russian oil ban - Financial Times

EU leaders at a summit struck a deal on an oil embargo against Russia that exempts a key supply route — a concession aimed at appeasing Hungary, which has been blocking the sanctions for nearly a month.

The embargo will include oil and petroleum products but will crucially allow a temporary exemption for crude delivered by pipeline, according to diplomats.

Capitals have not agreed how long any carve-out of oil supplied via pipeline would last. Keeping pipelines out of any embargo has been a key demand of Hungary, which has argued that a ban would put its economy at risk given its reliance on crude delivered by the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline from Russia.

On his way into the Brussels summit on Monday, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán insisted on guarantees that Budapest could still access Russian oil from other sources if there was an “accident” with Druzhba, which crosses Ukraine.

Baltic leaders, who have been pushing for an oil embargo, called for leaders to rally round a deal.

Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, said it was “up to everybody’s moral compass how to proceed with this”, while Arturs Kariņš, her Latvian counterpart, asked Orbán to look at the big picture: “It’s going to cost us more, but it’s only money. The Ukrainians are paying with their lives.”

Asked whether he believed there was any possibility of a compromise to help end the war, Kariņš said: “The right compromise is for Russia to lose the war.”

An embargo solely on seaborne oil purchases would cover about two-thirds of Europe’s imports from Russia.

A move to ban only Russian seaborne crude also risks distorting competition in the EU oil market, with refineries connected to pipelines from Russia enjoying a big advantage. The price of Russian oil has fallen to a huge discount as European traders have shunned the country’s seaborne crude since the invasion of Ukraine.

If exports via Druzhba are at the pipeline’s maximum capacity of 750,000 barrels a day, it would help Russia earn in the region of $2bn a month from EU buyers.

Russian Urals crude is trading at about $93 a barrel, compared with $120 for Brent, the international oil benchmark. While Russian oil delivered via Druzhba may not carry such a big discount, depending on how contracts are structured, Hungarian oil group Mol has said it has enjoyed “skyrocketing” margins for its refineries since March because of the “widening Brent-Ural spread”.

According to draft legislation seen by the Financial Times, the ban will include a restriction on re-exporting Russian oil to other member states and a prohibition of services including the financing of oil shipments. The Czech Republic prime minister, Petr Fiala, has asked for a longer exemption for his country, which is mainly supplied with refined oil products from neighbouring Slovakia.

Germany has two refineries served by the Druzhba pipeline and takes about 50 per cent of what it supplies. Poland takes 16 per cent, Slovakia 13.5 per cent, Hungary and Slovenia a combined 11 per cent and the Czech Republic 9.5 per cent, according to IHS Markit, a unit of S&P Global.

Volumes shipped via Druzhba have actually increased since Russia invaded Ukraine, with buyers in the EU looking to take advantage of the large discounts or to stock up ahead of any embargo.

Argus, an energy-price reporting agency, said that while seaborne shipments from Russia to Europe had fallen by 500,000 b/d, Druzhba shipments had risen by 100,000 b/d in April compared with January and were expected to increase again in May. Hungary has increased shipments by 65,000 b/d while Poland has imported an additional 130,000 b/d, helping to more than offset declines elsewhere.

The fact that refineries connected to pipelines from Russia will enjoy a huge competitive advantage as a result of the EU’s planned sanctions could have the perverse effect of benefiting Rosneft, the Russian state oil company. It owns 54 per cent of the Schwedt refinery in eastern Germany which is directly connected to the Druzhba pipeline.

Any final deal on the sixth sanctions package would need to be approved by all 27 member states. Alongside a partial oil ban, the package would include the ejection of Sberbank from the Swift messaging system as well as restrictions on more state-owned Russian broadcasters and a new round of asset freezes and travel bans on individuals.

Brussels proposed an embargo on buying Russian oil in early May, underlining the EU’s difficulties in finding a way to extend punishments on Moscow for its war on Ukraine while not damaging parts of the European economy that depend on Russian energy. The EU has already banned Russian coal but exempted gas from sanctions.

Additional reporting by Victor Mallet in Brussels, Eleni Varvitsioti in Athens and Marton Dunai in Budapest

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2022-05-30 21:51:07Z
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EU seeks to close ranks around plan for partial Russian oil ban - Financial Times

EU leaders at a summit are struggling to agree an oil embargo against Russia that exempts a key supply route — a concession aimed at appeasing Hungary, which has been blocking the sanctions for nearly a month.

The watered-down embargo will include oil and petroleum products but will crucially allow a “temporary” exemption for crude delivered by pipeline, according to draft conclusions seen by the Financial Times.

The conclusions are still subject to change and diplomats have not agreed how long any carve-out of oil supplied via pipeline would last.

Keeping pipelines out of any embargo has been a key demand of Hungary, which has argued that a ban would put its economy at risk given its reliance on crude delivered by the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline from Russia.

But on his way into the Brussels summit on Monday, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán insisted there still was no deal and that he wanted guarantees Budapest could still access Russian oil from other sources if there was an “accident” with Druzhba, which crosses Ukraine.

He also accused the European Commission of “irresponsible” behaviour in failing to ensure security of supply for Hungary in its proposals.

Baltic leaders, who have been pushing for an oil embargo, stood in stark contrast to Orbán — paving the way for potential acrimonious discussions during the leaders’ dinner.

Kaja Kallas, Estonian prime minister, said it was “up to everybody’s moral compass how to proceed with this”, while Arturs Kariņš, her Latvian counterpart, asked Orbán to look at the big picture: “It’s going to cost us more, but it’s only money. The Ukrainians are paying with their lives.” Asked whether he believed there was any possibility of a compromise to help end the war, Kariņš said: “The right compromise is for Russia to lose the war.”

Arriving at the summit, Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, said she had “low” expectations that the outstanding differences over the terms of the oil embargo would be resolved in the coming 48 hours, but they could be settled thereafter.

An embargo solely on seaborne oil purchases would cover about two-thirds of Europe’s imports from Russia.

A move to ban only Russian seaborne crude also risks distorting competition in the EU oil market, with refineries connected to pipelines from Russia enjoying a big advantage. The price of Russian oil has fallen to a huge discount as European traders have shunned the country’s seaborne crude since the invasion of Ukraine.

If exports via Druzhba are at the pipeline’s maximum capacity of 750,000 barrels a day, it would help Russia earn in the region of $2bn a month from EU buyers.

Russian Urals crude is trading at about $93 a barrel compared with $120 for Brent, the international oil benchmark. While Russian oil delivered via Druzhba may not carry such a big discount, depending on how contracts are structured, Hungarian oil group MOL has said it has enjoyed “skyrocketing” margins for its refineries since March owing to the “widening Brent-Ural spread”.

The draft summit conclusions say ministers need to ensure a “level playing field” for oil purchases.

According to draft legislation seen by the FT, the ban will include a restriction on re-exporting Russian oil to other member states and a prohibition of services including the financing of oil shipments.

Brussels proposed an embargo on buying Russian oil in early May, underlining the EU’s difficulties in finding a way to extend punishments on Moscow for its war on Ukraine while not damaging parts of the European economy that depend on Russian energy. The EU has already banned Russian coal but exempted gas from sanctions.

Germany has two refineries served by the Druzhba pipeline and takes about 50 per cent of what it supplies. Poland takes 16 per cent, Slovakia 13.5 per cent, Hungary and Slovenia a combined 11 per cent and the Czech Republic 9.5 per cent, according to IHS Markit, a unit of S&P Global.

Volumes shipped via Druzhba have actually increased since Russia invaded Ukraine, with buyers in the EU looking to take advantage of the large discounts or to stock up ahead of any embargo.

Argus, an energy-price reporting agency, said that while seaborne shipments from Russia to Europe had fallen by 500,000 b/d, Druzhba shipments had risen by 100,000 b/d in April compared with January and were expected to increase again in May. Hungary has increased shipments by 65,000 b/d while Poland has imported an additional 130,000 b/d, helping to more than offset declines elsewhere.

The fact that refineries connected to pipelines from Russia will enjoy a huge competitive advantage as a result of the EU’s planned sanctions could have the perverse effect of benefiting Rosneft, the Russian state oil company. It owns 54 per cent of the Schwedt refinery in eastern Germany which is directly connected to the Druzhba pipeline.

Any final deal on the sixth sanctions package would need to be approved by all 27 member states. Alongside a partial oil ban, the package would include the ejection of Sberbank from the Swift messaging system as well as restrictions on more state-owned Russian broadcasters and a new round of asset freezes and travel bans on individuals.

One EU diplomat said it was vital to maintain bloc unity and progress on the sanctions package. “Is there an agreement on an embargo on oil? Yes. Is there an agreement it will be in two phases? Yes. Is there an agreement on a date? It is more complicated. We will keep working on the package.”

Additional reporting by Victor Mallet in Brussels, Eleni Varvitsioti in Athens and Marton Dunai in Budapest

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2022-05-30 16:22:37Z
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Mona Lisa attacked with cake by 'man dressed as old lady in wheelchair' - Sky News

A person seemingly disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair has staged an attack on the Mona Lisa.

Video shared online shows the world's most famous artwork with what witnesses suggested was cake smeared across the glass case protecting it.

Bystanders said a "man dressed as an old lady" jumped out of a wheelchair at the Louvre in Paris before attempting to smash the protective glass in front of the Leonardo da Vinci painting.

One witness said the person then proceeded to "smear cake on the glass and throw roses everywhere before being tackled by security".

Separate footage shows the person suspected of being responsible telling bystanders in French: "Think of the planet… there are people who are destroying the planet, think about that … That's why I did it."

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Apparently wearing lipstick and a wig, the person is then escorted away by security. It was unclear what action, if any, they now face.

A history of Mona Lisa incidents

• The painting was stolen in 1911 by a museum employee, an event which increased the painting's international fame
• A vandal hurled acid at the painting in 1950, damaging the artwork and causing it to be kept behind glass ever since
• In 2009, a Russian woman angry at not being able to get French citizenship threw a ceramic cup at it, smashing the cup but not harming the glass or the painting

It is not thought that the painting, considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, was damaged.

The Louvre has been contacted for comment.

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2022-05-30 10:18:45Z
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Live news updates: Street battles break out in eastern Ukrainian city as Russian troops advance - Financial Times

This week many of us will be getting an early holiday season as a bulge in anniversaries means an uptick in public rest days across the world.

If you are reading this in the US, you are already immersed in the long Memorial day weekend with tomorrow’s commemoration of those who have given their life in military service.

On other years, the last Monday of May would also be a day off in the UK, linked to the Christian festival of Pentecost, or Whitsun as the Church of England calls it. But this year, the day off has been moved to Thursday and Brits have been handed an extra public holiday on Friday to commemorate Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years as British head of state — perhaps by heading to the cinema.

On Thursday, Italians will commemorate the founding of their modern state with fireworks and parades on National Republic day.

Then there is the Dragon Boat Festival, the traditional Chinese holiday held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar — this year that will be this Friday. However, due to the pandemic, many of the actual dragon boat races scheduled worldwide will be cancelled or held under restrictions.

Whatever you feel about the point of these public holidays, they have an additional poignancy this year given the debate about working hours. The greater flexibility needed to get things done during pandemic lockdowns has led many to question the rigidity of nine-to-five working, five days a week, about whether we need to blend our home and work life better or move to a four-day week — as tech business WANdisco has already done.

Economic data

It is a fairly full week for economic data with both inflation and unemployment data for the eurozone countries, on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, plus the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book on US economic conditions on Wednesday, and US unemployment data on Friday.

Companies

So-called dollar stores in the US have tended to trade resiliently during economic downturns and that will probably be the message from variety discounter B&M this week.

Analysts expect sales and profits for the year to the end of March to be below last year’s record levels as shopping habits normalise and costs rise. But, as my colleague Jonathan Eley notes, the company’s scale and its direct-sourcing operation in Asia will help it keep prices below those of more conventional rivals as incomes come under pressure.

These are likely to be the last set of full-year results for chief executive Simon Arora, who together with brother Bobby took B&M from a small chain of tatty shops in north-west England to an estate of almost 700 UK stores and a place in the FTSE 100. He surprised the market in April by announcing plans to retire.

Read the full week ahead calendar here

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2022-05-30 09:18:38Z
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Texas school shooting: US President Joe Biden to meet victims' families as he visits scene - Sky News

The Justice Department has said it will review the law enforcement response to the Texas shooting, as US President Joe Biden visited bereaved families after the country's worst school attack in a decade.

The president and First Lady Jill Biden visited a memorial at the school in Uvalde, Texas, before attending a church service and also meeting with survivors and first responders after landing in the state on Sunday.

Mr Biden was pictured reaching out to touch large photographs of the young children killed, while Mrs Biden laid a bouquet of 21 white flowers, one for each of those killed, as they paid their respects.

After leaving the church, they walked past a crowd of about 100 people who chanted "do something"

He responded: "We will."

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The president and his wife also spoke with Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (CISD) superintendent Hal Harrell and Mandy Gutierrez, principal at Robb Elementary School.

Image: Mr Biden and first lady Jill Biden pay their respects at the Robb Elementary School memorial

It comes as investigators seek to determine how critical mistakes were made in the response to the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.

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Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said it will conduct a "Critical Incident Review" of law enforcement's response to the shooting at the request of Uvalde's mayor.

He said: "The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events.

"The Justice Department will publish a report with its findings at the conclusion of its review."

He added the review would be conducted in a fair, impartial and independent manner and that the findings would be made public.

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Bidens visit site of school shooting

Image: President Joe Biden arrives at Robb Elementary School to honor the victims killed in this week's school shooting, Sunday, May 29, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas. (Aaron M. Sprecher via AP)

Some have been calling on the FBI to look into police actions following a decision to allow the shooter, Salvador Ramos, to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children in the room made panicked 911 calls for help.

Police say the 18-year-old entered the school last week with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle after earlier killing his grandmother at the house they shared.

Official accounts of how police responded to the shooting have flip-flopped wildly, with calls mounting for an independent probe.

Mr Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly called for major changes to America's gun laws but has been unable to get legislation past Republican opposition.

Image: The couple laid a bouquet of 21 white flowers to pay their respects

Image: Members of the community met the president and first lady during their visit to Texas

Read more:
Instructor who teaches police to deal with gunmen says Uvalde officers showed failings in leadership and mindset
Is America too deeply divided to deal with its gun problem?

Following the shooting, Mr Biden gave a commencement address at the University of Delaware.

He said: "Evil came to that elementary school classroom in Texas, to that grocery store in New York, to far too many places where innocents have died.

"We have to stand stronger. We must stand stronger. We cannot outlaw tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer."

Follow the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts,  Google Podcasts,  Spotify, Spreaker

The Texas visit is Mr Biden's third trip as president to a mass shooting site.

Earlier this month, he visited Buffalo, New York, after a shooting that left 10 black people dead at a supermarket.

Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault-style weapons during a trip to Buffalo this weekend, saying that in the wake of the two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are "a weapon of war" with "no place in a civil society".

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2022-05-29 19:18:45Z
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Ukraine says forces holding out against Russian assault on key Donbas city - Financial Times

Ukraine said its forces were holding out against an intense Russian assault in the eastern Donbas region amid heavy artillery fire but implored the west to supply weapons to help Kyiv turn the tide of the war.

Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region that makes up half of the Donbas, said on Sunday that Ukraine had driven Russian troops back from a highway, allowing Kyiv’s forces to supply the key city of Sievierodonetsk.

Russia is concentrating its forces on capturing Sievierodonetsk, the last big city in Luhansk still under Ukrainian control, as part of an offensive in the Donbas more than three months into President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

The city is suffering the worst damage in the war since a Russian siege essentially destroyed the southern port city of Mariupol.

However, Russia’s advance has slowed despite what Ukrainian forces described as a tactical retreat under enormous artillery bombardments.

Russia’s forces have surrounded two-thirds of Sievierodonetsk in an attempt to encircle it but have yet to progress further than a hotel on its outskirts, where Ukrainian forces have inflicted heavy casualties, Haidai told Ukrainian television.

“They’re hiding-out there, but they can’t move forward,” he said.

The siege of Sievierodonetsk, where Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky says his forces are outnumbered 20 to one, marks a strategic shift by Moscow to overwhelm smaller pockets of resistance one at a time, after Russia’s forces were forced to retreat from central Ukraine and driven back in the Kharkiv border region north of the Donbas.

In a late-night address on Saturday, Zelensky said, “the situation is very complicated” in the region, “where the Russian army is trying to squeeze at least some result for themselves”. Ukraine’s president described conditions as “indescribably difficult”.

Ukraine still believes it can recapture the area once it gets more weapons supplies from the west and can outgun Russia in a long-range artillery contest.

“Every day we are bringing closer the time when our army will surpass the occupiers technologically and by firepower,” Zelensky said, adding that he expected “good news” on western supplies in the next week.

Ukraine said it had received Danish-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles and US howitzers but was awaiting approval for multiple rocket launchers, which would allow Kyiv to go much further in hitting Russia’s supply lines.

“It is hard to fight when you are attacked from a 70km distance and have nothing to fight back with,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have foundered after Putin hardened his desire to capture more territory and annex areas his forces have already captured in the south-east.

In an 80-minute phone call with France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday, Putin blamed Ukraine for the collapse of the talks and said Russia was open to more negotiations.

But Macron and Scholz told Putin a negotiated end to the war had to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Zelensky told Dutch television that Ukraine wanted to recapture the territory it has lost to Russia since the invasion, including most of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south as well as parts of the Donbas, before resuming negotiations.

“I don’t think we can return all of our territory in full through military means,” including the Crimean peninsula and separatist-held areas of the Donbas Russia seized in 2014, he said. “If we decide to go that way, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people.”

Capturing the whole of Luhansk, which makes up half of the Donbas along with neighbouring Donetsk, would mark a propaganda coup for Putin, who has framed the war as an attempt to “liberate” Russian speakers there.

Russia rerouted most of its forces in the area when a series of humiliating battlefield defeats forced it to scale back its ambitions.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said any Russian victory in Luhansk would probably be pyrrhic.

“Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population center [ . . . ] as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong,” they wrote.

The brutal war of attrition had reduced Russia’s personnel and firepower so much, they added, that “regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will probably have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back.”

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2022-05-29 12:36:16Z
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Texas school shooting: Instructor who teaches police to deal with gunmen says Uvalde officers showed failings in leadership and mindset - Sky News

In a series of sheds on the edge of a Texas airfield sits the training centre that has set the national standard for how American police deal with active gunmen.

It is barely a hundred miles from Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers were shot dead at their school on Tuesday.

The admission by police that they got it wrong as the shooting was unfolding, that they should have confronted the gunman earlier, has raised the spectre that lives could have been saved.

Police in Uvalde say they were properly trained but it is clear something went catastrophically wrong as the minutes ticked by with gunman Salvador Ramos inside the school.

The Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) centre near San Marcos in Texas has trained 130,000 law enforcement and fire officials nationwide in "dynamic force-on-force scenario-based" courses. It is the FBI's training of choice.

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They watched the events in Uvalde with horror and believe failings in the police response were exposed.

Assistant director John Curnutt said: "I understand why it was difficult that they were put into the situation they were put into, but I understand that we know enough about these incidents that we should be training for stuff like this."

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Image: John Curnutt is assistant director of the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training centre

A veteran of 18 years in SWAT teams, Mr Curnutt has been in that situation himself.

"The plan A doesn't work? What's the plan B, C, D? We have to have these capabilities, it's required of us.

"Winston Churchill once said: 'Sometimes doing your best isn't good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required'."

In Uvalde on Tuesday, he said, law enforcement showed failings in leadership, equipment, mindset and applying the training they would have undergone.

"Every single one of these events is a watershed moment for us. Every single one of these breaks our heart and chews up our soul just a little bit each time.

"We want to make sure that, if we can't prevent them, we're darn sure going to respond to them to the best of our ability."

It is a sad reality of American life that, for years, schools have been required to conduct active shooter drills, teaching the youngest of children how to deal with the most awful of situations.

Staff at the ALERRT centre ran through an exercise on how to confront a gunman in a mock classroom.

Read more:
Full timeline of police response to massacre
'We knew he was a monster': Texas gunman had sinister nickname on social media
'Wrong decision' not to storm classroom where gunman was holed up, official admits

It was chilling to be in that room as he shouted threats and fired blank rounds from an assault weapon before being taken down by responding officers.

Everyone there recognised it is easier to get things right in a training scenario, much harder to do so facing automatic fire in the heat of battle.

But Mr Curnutt said, whatever the risks, that is the job.

"Those kids deserved better. Those kids deserved everything we could throw at it."

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2022-05-28 20:38:07Z
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Ukrainian forces may have to retreat in Luhansk to avoid capture, governor says - Sky News

Ukrainian forces may have to retreat in Luhansk to avoid being captured, the region's governor has said.

Serhiy Gaidai said Russian troops have entered Severodonetsk, the largest Donbas city still in Ukrainian hands.

Some 90% of the city's buildings are damaged, he said, adding: "The Russians will not be able to capture Luhansk region in the coming days as analysts have predicted.

"We will have enough strength and resources to defend ourselves.

"However it is possible that in order not to be surrounded we will have to retreat."

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Earlier in May, Russia abandoned its attempt to take Ukraine's capital Kyiv, instead shifting its focus to the southern Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014.

Russian-backed fighters said on Saturday that they had taken control of Lyman, a rail hub west of Severodonetsk, but Ukraine said its forces were blocking Russian efforts to reach Sloviansk, to the southwest.

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The UK Ministry of Defence said earlier that Russian ground forces had taken several villages northwest of Popasna, a town in Severodonetsk district.

Read more:
Severodonetsk: Fear, suspicion and split loyalties in the city where situation is spiralling out of control
'We need to hold back this horde': Shelling intensifies in Donbas as Russian soldiers try to encircle key cities

Satellite images from Maxar showed Russian artillery, armoured units moving from the north and east of the city toward Lyman, and the aftermath of widespread artillery shelling that damaged dozens of homes and buildings.

Extensive damage could be seen in Popasna, with Russian military units deployed in the surrounding area.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy remained defiant, however, saying in his nightly video address: "If the occupiers think that Lyman and Severodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong.

"Donbas will be Ukrainian."

Image: Day 93 of the war in Ukraine

Key developments:
• EU officials hope to reach a deal by Sunday banning deliveries of Russian oil - but only by sea, 75% of the bloc's supply. Pipeline supplies will still be allowed - a compromise aimed at placating Hungary
• Talks continue between Sweden, Finland and Turkey regarding bids by the first two to become members of NATO. Turkey has so far refused to back the applications
• Mr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of weaponising a global food crisis, saying they are not ready for peace talks. Russia said Kyiv have stalled the talks

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Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say that Russia aims to impose permanent rule across the south, including Mariupol, a city now mostly reduced to rubble.

In the region of Kherson, one of the first places to fall under Russian control after the February invasion, Ukraine said Russia was fortifying its position and trapping civilians with constant shelling.

The region's Ukrainian governor, Hennadiy Laguta, said the humanitarian situation was critical in some areas and people were finding it very difficult to leave.

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2022-05-28 05:16:43Z
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Texas police admit it was 'wrong decision' not to enter classroom sooner - Financial Times

Police in Texas have admitted it was the “wrong decision” for officers not to enter a classroom at Robb Elementary School in the city of Uvalde sooner during a shooting on Tuesday that killed 19 children and two teachers.

Authorities in the state are rushing to piece together the complex timeline of events surrounding Tuesday’s attack amid mounting criticism from school parents and local residents over the amount of time it took to end the massacre, and contradictory statements about when officers first entered the school.

In a press conference on Friday, Texas Department of Public Safety director Steven McCraw acknowledged that officers’ hesitance to enter the classroom where the shooting was taking place was a mistake.

“Of course it was not the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was a wrong decision, period. There’s no excuse for that.”

He said that the reason for the delay, which authorities believe allowed 18-year-old Salvador Ramos to gun down students in the school unchallenged for almost an hour, stemmed from the belief that all of the children in the classroom had already been killed.

The perpetrator had fired hundreds of rounds into the two classrooms in four minutes, McCraw said, which might have led officers to believe that “there may not be anybody living any more”.

He added that the school district chief of police “was convinced at the time that there was no more threat to the children and that the subject was barricaded and that they had time to organise with proper equipment”.

However, a 9-year-old survivor of the shooting told local news outlet KENS 5 that police officers told the students in the classroom to ask for help if they needed it. When a student called out for help, following the police’s orders, she was shot by the gunman.

Multiple children inside the classroom also made 911 calls to ask for help starting at 12:03pm, while 19 police officers were in the hallway, McCraw said. Tactical teams and police officers did not breach the door of the classroom until 12:50pm.

Texas governor Greg Abbott said during a press conference in Uvalde on Friday he was “livid” that some of the information he had received from law enforcement officials earlier this week about the shooting, and had relayed to reporters on Wednesday, was inaccurate.

Abbott said he “wrote down notes in detail” following meetings with officials that underpinned Wednesday’s press conference, but that details had emerged later in the week that contradicted those accounts.

“As everyone has learned, the information I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate, and I am absolutely livid about that,” he said.

The details come as former US president Donald Trump is set to appear on Friday at a high-profile National Rifle Association event in Houston, Texas.

Trump will be appearing alongside other prominent Republicans including Texas senator Ted Cruz, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, and North Carolina lieutenant-governor Mark Robinson at a leadership forum organised by the NRA’s lobbying arm.

Abbott was scheduled to speak at the event in person, but pulled out overnight to instead hold a press conference in Uvalde, where he announced support measures, including counselling and workers’ compensation, for families of the shooting victims and residents of the city. He pre-recorded a video for the NRA conference.

“America needs real solutions and real leadership in the moment, not politicians and partisanship,” Trump said in a social media post explaining why he would uphold his “longtime commitment” to speak at the NRA convention. He added he would “deliver an important address to America”.

The NRA’s decision to push ahead with its annual convention, which was postponed several times due to the coronavirus pandemic, has proven controversial in light of the shooting.

On Friday, hundreds of people gathered outside the convention venue in Houston with signs protesting the event. “I think it’s totally disgusting,” said Linda Bennett, who lives in the city. “It’s disrespectful to the entire country, especially the families in Uvalde.”

Tuesday’s massacre was the second mass shooting in barely a fortnight after a gunman killed 10 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on May 14.

Houston mayor Sylvester Turner asked the NRA to consider postponing the event because a legally binding contract prevents the city from cancelling it outright.

“What I would say to the NRA, even though the city cannot cancel a contract because we don’t agree with their position on guns, the NRA can postpone it a week or two to allow the families to bury their children,” Turner said in a television interview on Thursday.

Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic presidential candidate who will be running against Abbott later this year in the race for governor, has called for people opposed to gun violence to join him at a rally in Houston Friday afternoon.

O’Rourke interrupted Abbott and other officials at a press conference in Uvalde on Wednesday, accusing the incumbent governor of “doing nothing” to stop gun violence in Texas.

Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw and state senator John Cornyn were also due to appear at the Houston conference, but pulled out.

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2022-05-27 21:32:47Z
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Nato jets scrambled to intercept two Russian aircraft near Finland - Metro.co.uk

The Kremlin planes were intercepted and flew back to Russia today (Picture: Getty Images)

Nato fighter jets have intercepted Russian aircraft near Finland’s border with Norway.

Intelligence identified the aircraft as a Mikoyan MiG-31 ‘Foxhound’ and a Sukhoi Su-24 ‘Fencer’ jet.

Nato scrambled F-35 fighter jets yesterday amid rising tensions between Finland and Russia.

The Russian jets had been spotted near Finnmark, in Norway’s far north, but did not enter official Norwegian airspace.

The Royal Norwegian Air Force posted: ‘Two Russian aircraft north of Finnmark today. CRC Sørreisa reported the aircraft, and NATO ordered our F-35s on their wings.

‘The Russian aircraft flew to the Norwegian Sea before returning east.’

The aircraft flew over the Norwegian Sea and then returned to Russia.

A Norwegian F-35 fighter jet during NATO exercise ‘Cold Response’ in March (Picture: AFP)

The identification of two Russian aircraft prompted the response (Picture: Royal Norwegian Air Force)

Russia has issued an increasing number of threats to both Finland and Sweden in recent weeks, leading to increased tensions between the nations.

Both Finland and Sweden defied Kremlin warnings to announce their bids to join Nato on May 18.

The Kremlin issued a chilling warning that the moves were both a ‘grave mistake with far reaching consequences’.

Representatives from both countries will travel to Madrid next month to firm up their plans to join the military alliance.

In relation to today’s incident Stine Barclay Gåsland, of the Norway’s Air Force, called for calm.

More: Sweden

She told local news outlet TV 2: ‘We are used to it happening, and there is nothing illegal in it.

‘We pay close attention to all activity in our local areas.’

But trespassing into Norwegian airspace would have provoked ‘a more aggressive action’, she added.

There are always two F35s are always on standby, in what’s termed the Quick Reaction Alert for Nato.

Pilots have to be poised and ready to become airborne in 15 minutes or less.

Norway’s Armed Forces have scrambled aircraft 34 times in the last year.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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2022-05-27 13:05:00Z
1445533769

Texas shooting: Ted Cruz storms off after journalist confronts him - Metro.co.uk

A journalist asked Ted Cruz why gun massacres are an American problem (Picture: Sky News / AP)

Ted Cruz was left flustered and stormed off an interview as a journalist confronted him and asked why mass shootings are an American problem.

The Republican senator was at a vigil alongside Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, remembering those lost during the recent Robb Elementary School shooting.

Cruz – who received $176,274 (£140,000) from the National Riffle Association up to 2019 – was then confronted by Sky News journalist Mark Stone.

He cornered Mr Cruz and asked him whether it was time for a change in gun laws in the United States.

Between 2009 and 2018, there were 288 school shootings in the US – the next highest number was in Mexico, where there were eight.

Both Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott have been staunch allies of liberal gun laws in the US, which Democrats say fuel the problem of mass shootings in US schools.

They were not met with a frosty reception in Texas, partly because of the state’s traditional backing for gun ownership, which is enshrined in the second amendment.

When asked by Mark Stone why American exceptionalism was ‘so awful’, Cruz hit back.

Ted Cruz was left flustered at the situation (Picture: Sky News)

Texas is a traditional state that supports the first amendment (Picture: AP)

People in Texas are mourning over the tragic shooting (Picture: AFP)

He told Sky News: ‘You know, I’m sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful. You’ve got your political agenda. God love you.’ 

After repeatedly being told ‘You can’t answer that’ by Stone, Cruz turned and said: ‘Why is it that people come from all over the world to America? Because it’s the freest, most prosperous, safest country on Earth. Stop being a propagandist.

‘You know, it’s easy to go to politics.

‘Inevitably, when some violent psychopath murders people, if you want to stop violent crime, the proposals the Democrats have — none of them would have stopped this.’

The vigil was held to remember the people lost during the shooting (Picture: AFP)

America has had 288 school shootings between 2009 and 2018 (Picture: EPA)

‘There are 19 sets of parents who are never going to get to kiss their child tonight.’

The Texas senator then stormed out of the interview and left the scene.

Republicans like Governor Abbott don’t see gun laws as the issue.

He instead blamed the massacre on the mental health of gunman Salvador Ramos.

During a later interview Cruz, echoed this sentiment when talking to CNN, saying: ‘Inevitably when there’s a murderer of this kind, you see politicians try to politicise it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens.’ 

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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2022-05-26 16:14:00Z
1446206667

Bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic portrait of two Pompeians that died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD | Scientific Reports - Nature.com

Abstract

The archaeological site of Pompeii is one of the 54 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Italy, thanks to its uniqueness: the town was completely destroyed and buried by a Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 AD. In this work, we present a multidisciplinary approach with bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic analyses of two Pompeian human remains from the Casa del Fabbro. We have been able to characterize the genetic profile of the first Pompeian’ genome, which has strong affinities with the surrounding central Italian population from the Roman Imperial Age. Our findings suggest that, despite the extensive connection between Rome and other Mediterranean populations, a noticeable degree of genetic homogeneity exists in the Italian peninsula at that time. Moreover, palaeopathological analyses identified the presence of spinal tuberculosis and we further investigated the presence of ancient DNA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In conclusion, our study demonstrates the power of a combined approach to investigate ancient humans and confirms the possibility to retrieve ancient DNA from Pompeii human remains. Our initial findings provide a foundation to promote an intensive and extensive paleogenetic analysis in order to reconstruct the genetic history of population from Pompeii, a unique archaeological site.

Introduction

The archaeological site of Pompeii is one of the 54 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Italy. Pompeii was a Roman Imperial Age port city located south of Naples in Central Italy (Fig. 1) until it was completely destroyed and buried by the ashes of the Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 AD^1,2. According to Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (better known as Pliny the Younger: a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome), the Vesuvius’ eruption occurred around 1 p.m on the 24th of August and was visible from over 40 km away. More than 2000 individuals died as a direct consequence of the eruption¹, the deadliest ever in European history. The several exceptionally well-preserved buildings found in Pompeii such as Casa del Chirurgo (House of the Surgeon), Casa del Fauno (House of Faun) and the Casa dei Casti Amanti (House of the Chaste Lovers) suggest that Pompeii was probably a holiday resort for wealthy Romans. However, Pompeii was also an important city for trading and business, with a population ranging between 6400 and 20,000 dwellers.

Figure 1

Geographic location of the Pompeii site, Campania (Italy). Map source: SINAnet ISPRA – Dem75 (QGIS 3.22 ‘Biatowieza’) https://www.qgis.org/it/site/.

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Despite continuing an intense scientific research on the site since the nineteenth century to this day, conducting both bioarchaeological and genetic studies from Pompeiian human remains has been a challenge, as exposure to high temperature effectively destroys the bone matrix, altering the structure of the bioapatite³ and diminishing the quality and quantity of recoverable DNA⁴. On the other hand, it is also possible that the pyroclastic materials that covered the remains could have shielded them from environmental factors, like the atmospheric oxygen, that degrades DNA⁵.

Past studies have shown the possibility of retrieving genetic data from both human and zooarchaeological remains in Pompeii^{6,7,8,9,10,11,12}, but those initial analyses were limited to short stretches of mitochondrial DNA obtained using PCR-based methods. New available methodologies, based on high-throughput shotgun sequencing, DNA capture, enrichment strategy^13,14, as well as using optimal sources of ancient DNA (aDNA) from teeth and petrous bones^15,16, have dramatically increased the amount of data that can be obtained from previously unsuitable samples for genetic research, and may open new avenues to substantially increase the knowledge of the genetic diversity in the ancient Pompeian population.

In this work, we present a multidisciplinary approach with bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic analyses of two human remains from the Casa del Fabbro (House of the Craftsman: Supplementary Fig. S1) from Pompeii. The successful recovery of aDNA from one individual enabled us to reconstruct its genetic history and to investigate the presence of blood-borne pathogens, alongside skeletal biology evidence. Furthermore, this data can also give us an overview of the genetic diversity outside of Rome during the Roman Empire.

Individuals analysed from Casa del Fabbro

The analysed human remains came from Room 9 of the Casa del Fabbro (Regio I, Insula 10, civic 7), and their position and orientation are compatible with instantaneous death due to the approach of the high-temperature volcanic ash cloud¹⁷. More than half of individuals found in Pompeii died inside their houses, indicating a collective unawareness of the possibility of a volcanic eruption or that the risk was downplayed due to the relatively common land tremors in the region². Both skeletons have been discovered in anatomical position. They were both leaning on a low relief in a corner of what probably was the dining room, on the remnants of a triclinium, a sort of couch or chaise longue used in Roman buildings during meals. Individual A was in left lateral recumbent position with flexed limbs, with the left arm and leg on the ground and right limbs on the triclinium. The individual B had the arms gathered in front of the skull and legs on the ground flexed on the right side, with the back leaning against the triclinium.

Results

The two Casa del Fabbro individuals (Supplementary Fig. S1) underwent osteological examination to establish their respective sex, estimated height, and approximate age-at-death. Individual A was a male between 35 and 40 years-old and stood 164.3 cm tall. Individual B was a female over 50 years of age who stood 153.1 cm tall. Estimated heights were obtained through averaging two methods^18,19,20,21 and are consistent with Roman Age height averages (male: 164.4 cm; female: 152.1 cm)²² as well as Pompeii and Herculaneum height averages^23,24 (see Supplementary Table S1).

We extracted and sequenced DNA from a petrous bone from each Pompeian individual with identical procedures (see “Materials and methods”) and obtained 0.4 X (individual A) and 0.0013 X (individual B) average genome-wide depth of coverage (Table 1). Both individuals displayed typical signatures of aDNA²⁵ (Supplementary Fig. S2). Low rates of contamination with modern human DNA (0.8% for the mtDNA and between 0.6 and 0.8% for the X chromosome, Table 1 and Supplementary Figs. S2, S3) for individual A confirmed the authenticity of the aDNA. The low coverage obtained for individual B prevented us from reaching any further assessments of quality parameters. Herein, we report the details of the analyses only for individual A.

Table 1 Statistic parameters and contamination results of the individuals analysed. Total is the total number of reads per library; Unique is the number of sequences mapping uniquely to the human reference; Rmdup is the unique sequences without the duplicate; Endogenous (%) is the proportion of human sequences after trimming; genome-wide; we also reported the number of identified SNPs, the mitochondrial, X and Y-chromosome average depth of coverage.

Full size table

Sex determination and uniparental genetic markers

The genetic sex determination (estimated by R_Y parameter²⁶, and by the X chromosome coverage) confirmed the morphological determination that individual A was a male (Table 1).

The mitochondrial DNA haplogroup was identified using HaploGrep2^27,28 (Table 1), and revealed that the individual belongs to the haplogroup clade HV0a, the main monophyletic branch of HV0 and subclade of haplogroup HV. This mitochondrial lineage is absent among published Roman Imperial individuals from Italy²⁹. In Europe, the first evidence of the HV haplogroup is from a Magdalenian period individual from Spain³⁰ while in Italy from a Mesolithic individual from Sicily (Favignana)³¹. The HV haplogroup is actually associated with the early human dispersal in Eurasia after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)³². It is unevenly spread across Europe with highest frequencies in the Near East (~11%)³³, in south Europe (from ~4% to ~11%)³⁴ and in the Balkan peninsula (~8%)³⁵. HV0a coalesces around 12.5–11.0 kya ago³⁴ and, among the extant populations, is common in Sardinia³⁶.

Individual A, albeit at low coverage (Table 1), was found to belong to the Y-chromosome lineage A-M13 (A1b1b2b), a rare lineage absent among ancient individuals from the Italian Peninsula²⁹, mainly found in Eastern Africa (~ 40%), but with known occurrences, at much lower frequencies, in the Near East (Turkey, Yemen, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia) and the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia, Cyprus and Lesbos^37,38,39,40. Downstream of A-M13 and restricting the analysis to transversions polymorphisms, the individual can be placed at A-V5880, a sub-haplogroup that contains all A-M13 positive Sardinians from past studies^39,40, and that has been dated to coalesce around 7.62 (± 0.92) thousands of years ago, using Bayesian analysis⁴⁰.

Pompeian genetic structure

To understand the relationship of the higher-coverage ancient Pompeian individual A, we assembled a dataset of relevant previously published ancient populations from Upper Palaeolithic to Medieval periods^{13,14,15,29,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66} (genotyped on the “1240K” SNP panel—detailed in Supplementary Table S2) combined with 471 present-day West Eurasian individuals (subset panel of the Human Origins)⁵⁶, which was used on all subsequent analyses.

Using the EIGENSOFT package⁶⁷, we performed principal component analysis (PCA), and according to the results the Pompeian individual A clustered with other Italian Imperial Roman Age individuals and is positioned close to the well-documented Neolithic cline of Anatolians to European populations⁵⁸ (Fig. 2a).

Figure 2

(a) PCA on selected 471 present-day west Eurasians (gray dots) and projected 1030 ancient individuals plotted by R version 3.6.2 (https://www.r-project.org/): the Pompeian individual A is in red and labelled with f1R_IRA; (b) four-way qpAdm models with source populations Anatolia Neolithic, Russian_Yamnaya_Samara, Iranian_N and Western hunter-gatherers (WHG). Error bars represent ± 1 standard errors of the proportion of each component. The complete results are reported in Supplementary Table S3.

Full size image

These results can be formally tested using a D-statistics of the form D(Mbuti, Test; Pompeian, Italy_IRA), which gauges whether the Pompeian individual A forms a clade with other Central Italian Imperial Roman Age individuals²⁹, to the exclusion of other test populations (Supplementary Table S4). With the exception of Bronze Age Iberia, which shares a high genetic drift with Italy Imperial Roman Age (Z = 3.33), for all the other populations considered we cannot reject a clade-like relationship for the Pompeian and Imperial Roman Age cluster (Supplementary Table S4).

Furthermore, using statistics in the form D(Mbuti, Test; Pompeian, Russia_MA1_HG), we tested which other population showed high affinity to the Pompeian individual, using a 24 thousand year old individual from Russia as an outgroup (Mal’ta)⁶⁵. Populations with Z-score values lower than − 3 represent statistically significant results of excess shared drift with Pompeii individual A. Among them, Neolithic Anatolian (Anatolia_N) had the highest scores, with Z = − 9.57 (Supplementary Table S5, Fig. 3).

Figure 3

Point estimates and ± 3 standard errors for the top twenty populations with significantly (Z < 3) more allele sharing with the ancient Pompeian in comparison to 24 ky old Mal’ta based on the statistic D(Mbuti, Test; Pompeian, Russia_MA1_HG). All results can be found in Supplementary Table S5.

Full size image

The position of the Pompeian individual A in the PCA (Fig. 2a) falls also close to the distribution of modern Mediterranean and Near Eastern populations, such as Greeks, Maltese, Cypriots, and Turks. Such a result allowed us to hypothesize a genetic contribution from the Near East. This hypothesis can be also supported by a cline from Neolithic Iran (Iran_N) to Italy Imperial Roman Age (Italy_IRA, including the Pompeian individual) passing through Chalcolithic Iran (Iran_CA) and Iron Age Iran (Iran_IA) (Fig. 2a). The presence of Iranian-related ancestry has been identified in Italy since the Neolithic period, with a reported increase in this component in Central Italy during the Roman Imperial Age compared to the previous Iron Age period^29,66. However, when performing the same four-population test, but using the Pompeian individual instead of Imperial Age Romans from Rome, the result is statistically non-significant (Supplementary Table S6), indicating that in individual A of Pompeii no further contribution by Iranian-related ancestry occurred after the Iron Age.

From the distribution of individuals obtained with our PCA analysis (Fig. 2a), it is also possible to recognize a cline from Morocco_Iberomaurusian to Italy Imperial Roman Age (Italy_IRA) passing through Morocco Neolithic after the Iron Age. The genetic contribution derived from a North African source is already evident in the Italian prehistory. Indeed, admixture of a North African ancestry was recognized in Sardinia since the Chalcolithic⁴⁸ and in central Italy since the Iron Age (Etruscan)^29,66 and continued into the Roman Imperial period²⁹. Nevertheless, we did not identify any North African ancestry contribution in the Pompeian individual using D-statistics (Supplementary Table S6). Another significant genetic component in most post-Bronze Age European populations comes from a source ultimately deriving from the Eurasian Steppe^41,68, and has been attested in the Italian Peninsula in Iron Age Italy^29,69, Bronze Age Sicily⁴⁵ as well as in the Pompeian individual A.

To confirm these findings, we attempted to fit the Pompeian as either a three- or four-way combination of Anatolian Neolithic, Russian Yanmaya, Iranian Neolithic and Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) using qpAdm⁷⁰ (Supplementary Table S3). We set a minimum threshold of 100,000 SNPs and only considered results when p > 0.05.

Three-way admixtures that fit the data always included both ancestries from Anatolian and Iranian Neolithic, with varying contributions from the Steppe and WHG (Supplementary Table S3). Four-way models displayed major contributions of Anatolian Neolithic (51.6 ± 7.8%) and Iran Neolithic (30.5 ± 8.1%) in comparison to Steppe-related ancestry (13.5 ± 8.0%) and WHG (4.4 ± 5.4%) components (Fig. 2b, Supplementary Table S3).

We further attempted to investigate if the fit could be improved by including Morocco_Iberomaurusian as a fifth source⁴⁶, but no three-, four- or five-way mixture with this last component produced significant results (Supplementary Table S3).

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

A palaeopathological study carried out on the Pompeian individual diagnosed spinal tuberculosis (Pott's disease) (Table 2) on the basis of diagnostic morphological markers such as a large lytic destruction on the upper anterior half of the fourth lumbar vertebra L4 (Fig. 4). Moreover, the digital radiograph analysis shows erosion in the antero-superior portion of the vertebral body, with a reduced downward cortical rim and a bowl-shaped appearance (Fig. 4). All the other vertebral osteitis that can cause similar lesions (pyogenic osteomyelitis, actinomycosis, metastatic neoplasms, osteoporosis, brucellosis and extrapulmonary tuberculosis⁷¹) have been excluded for the following reasons.

Table 2 Differential diagnosis of tuberculosis in individual A from “Casa del Fabbro”. nd: characteristic not determinable.

Full size table

Figure 4

Photography and digital radiograph of the fourth lumbar vertebra (L4) affected by tuberculous spondylodiscitis of the individual A.

Full size image

Pyogenic osteomyelitis may cause lytic lesions of vertebral bodies, with a predilection for the lumbar spine; however, the spinous process and neural arch are often involved, and lesions often show marked new bone proliferation⁷¹. Actinomycosis is characterized by large and spheroid lesions surrounded by reactive new bone; the vertebral column is affected in a way quite different from that of any other form of infection⁷². Metastatic neoplasia first affects the peduncles, neural arches and spinous processes with circular lytic lesions, and later the vertebral body. Osteoporosis, the most frequent demineralizing disease, can produce vertebral fracture and collapse due to bone demineralization⁷³ and normally affects aged people. The brucellar spondylitis, a consequence of brucellosis, a highly contagious zoonosis caused by ingestion of milk or infected meat, has an evolution similar to Pott's disease (extrapulmonary tuberculosis), so much so as to be called pseudo-Pott. It involves destructive vertebral lesions and formation of ossifluent abscesses. Moreover, at digital radiograph analyses, brucellar spondylitis shows disseminated decalcification, irregular erosions at the vertebral edges with the typical destruction of the upper anterior angle of one or more contiguous vertebrae, reduction of the intervertebral space up to the fusion between two contiguous vertebrae and the Pedro-i-Pons sign⁷⁴ (osteosclerotic semicircle around the osteolysis area of the upper antero-vertebral angle, typical of brucellar spondylitis). The digital radiography image shows no sign of Pedro-i-Pons (Fig. 4), and the case fully matches the palaeopathological and radiological criteria for tuberculosis proposed by Buikstra and Roberts⁷⁴.

Extrapulmonary tuberculosis can cause characteristic skeletal changes, such as collapse of the vertebrae (Pott's disease), periosteal reactive lesions, and osteomyelitis.

Accordingly, the most probable diagnosis for Individual A from Casa del Fabbro is spinal TB (Pott's disease) (Table 2), the most common type of tuberculosis involving the bony elements, and one of the most common and devastating diseases in human history⁷⁵. The partial preservation of the lumbar spine does not allow us to observe if the lesions also affected the L3 which has not been recovered. Nevertheless, the degree of extension of the lesion on the upper body of L4 prompts us to think that the lower body of L3 was also probably affected. The importance of this case is also because skeletal injuries, the only events that can be identified in an archaeological context, occur only in a minority of cases. Pre-antibiotic data suggest that about 3–5% of TB cases show bone alterations⁷⁴.

As it is known that the DNA from ancient pathogens can also be preserved on ancient bone material⁷⁶, we attempted to recover Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA from the sequenced reads of the individual palaeopathologically diagnosed with TB. For this, we used a k-mer-based competitive metagenomic classifier⁷⁷ on a database containing all archaea, bacterial and viral genomes, as well as the human reference. This resulted in 14,096 reads ranked at the Mycobacterium genus, but only 403 of those could be uniquely assigned to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis species complex (Supplementary Table S7). We extracted and remapped those reads to Mycobacterium tuberculosis human strain H37Rv and evaluated deamination patterns. When using reads from the whole Mycobacterium genus, we indeed have a damage pattern consistent with aDNA (Supplementary Fig. S4), but when restricting to reads classified as Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex the low amount of data does not provide enough resolution for authentication. This result could be due to three different, not mutually exclusive, reasons: it is already known that the petrous bone is an excellent source of endogenous aDNA but it shows little aDNA from pathogens⁷⁶; in addition, Mycobacterium tuberculosis is known to be difficult to molecularly diagnose even on affected and symptomatic patients from buccal swabs^77,78,79,80. Moreover, within the Mycobacterium genus, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis shares up to ∼ 99% genetic sequence identity with other common soil Mycobacteria⁸¹. However, in our case, the two individuals had never been in contact with the soil during the diagenesis process, because they were entirely covered by volcanic material. This makes the finding of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA more likely to be endogenous.

Discussion

To our knowledge, our results represent the first successfully sequenced Pompeian human genome.

The genome-wide analyses point out that the Pompeian individual A is genetically close to the extant Mediterranean peoples, mostly to Central Italians and Sardinians. It is plausible to think that, thanks to the expansion and the increase in effective population size during the Roman Imperial Age⁸², the Roman genetic pool could have contributed to the nearby populations with a genetic signature that can still be recognized in the extant Mediterranean regions today. Consistent with the autosomal results that show a high affinity of individual A with Neolithic Anatolians, its Y-chromosome haplogroup is presently only found among present-day Sardinians⁴⁵. This makes it likely that this male lineage arrived in the Italian peninsula through an Anatolian source during the Neolithic.

Both Y-chromosome and mtDNA lineages from the Pompeian individual were absent among published individuals in Roman Imperial age in Italy²⁹, suggesting a high diversity during that period across the Italian Peninsula. This signal can also be seen at the genome-wide level, by comparing the estimated ancestry proportions found in individual A with those from published Roman Imperial Age individuals²⁹ (Supplementary Table S8, Supplementary Fig. S5). Actually, for some of the published individuals, it was not possible to reach a fit with the model using the same source populations (Supplementary Table S8), suggesting a different genetic composition. This genetic variability found in the Roman Imperial Age could be also supported by contacts, interactions, and migrations of people across the Mediterranean basin already identified using different methodologies^83,84.

Despite this high genetic variability in the Imperial period²⁹ the Pompeian individual A shows a higher level of shared genetic drift with the central Italy Roman Imperial Age group. This result strongly suggests that the individual that we have analysed should come from the Italian peninsula. Whether this individual belongs to the local population of Pompeii or is part of the 5% of the internal migrants characterizing the imperial population of Italy⁸⁵ is difficult to address, but very likely he is not part of the large external migrations related to the practice of enslavement.

Finally, we used multiple lines of evidence to determine that one of the individuals was affected by tuberculosis. It is already known that tuberculosis was endemic in the Roman Imperial period thanks to the writings and ancient descriptions from Celsus (De Medicina, III, 22; 1st cent. AD), Galen and Celio Aureliano, and Aretheus of Cappadocia (Signa chron., I, 8; 2nd cent. AD). The increased population density that characterized the beginning of the Roman era, probably due to the development of an urban Roman way of life, favoured the spread of tuberculosis across Italy^86,87,88.

In conclusion, our study—albeit limited to one individual—confirms and demonstrates the possibility of applying palaeogenomic methods to study human remains from this unique site. Our initial findings provide a foundation to promote an intensive analysis of well-preserved Pompeian individuals. Supported by the enormous amount of archaeological information that has been collected in the past century for the city of Pompeii, their paleogenetic analyses will help us to reconstruct the lifestyle of this fascinating population of the Imperial Roman period.

Materials and methods

Skeletal biology

Sex-determination was carried out using DSP (Diagnose Sexuelle Probabiliste)⁸⁹.

Age-at-death was determined using changes to the pubic symphysis⁹⁰ and the auricular surface of the ilium⁹¹ for both individuals. Concerning individual A, a radiographic method based on the apposition of secondary dentine was applied to the digital radiograph of the two left lower premolars²². Periapical digital radiographs were taken using a NOMAD hand-held dental X-ray device (Aribex, USA) combined with a digital sensor (DSX, Anthos, Italy) linked to a portable pc. All radiographs were taken with a Rinn-type digital sensor holder with 0.05 s exposure time and 60 kV.

Stature was estimated using statistical methods, taking into account the maximum length of long bones (humerus, ulna, femur and tibia), according to Giannecchini and Moggi-Cecchi²², and by applying the equations proposed by Pearson⁷⁶ and by Trotter and Gleser for African-American^19,20,21 that provide the most consistent estimates for Italian populations of Roman Age¹⁸.

Moreover, Pott's disease, a form of osteo-articular tuberculosis (TB), was examined by morphological approach and digital radiograph of the fourth lumbar vertebra (L4). For radiographic images, a DR Fujifilm machine was used with an exposure (100 ms) at 55 kV to 100 mA.

Ancient DNA

DNA extraction

In order to obtain the largest possible amount of aDNA¹⁵ we have sampled one petrous bone for each individual. The ancient DNA extraction was performed according to the Allentoft et al.⁴¹ protocol. All molecular work (DNA extraction and library preparation) was conducted in dedicated ancient DNA clean laboratory facilities at the Center of Molecular Anthropology for Ancient DNA Studies, Department of Biology, University of Rome Tor Vergata⁴. The otic capsule was targeted and around 100–200 mg bone powder was used for DNA extraction. In order to remove the surface contaminants, the samples were pre-digested using a digestion buffer (0.46 M of EDTA pH = 8; 10 nm of TE buffer 100×; 0.14–0.22 mg/ml of Proteinase K; 0.5% of N-laurylsarcosine; 1/1000 vol of Phenol red) for 45 min at 37 °C. After that step, the samples were centrifuged at 2000g for 2 min and the supernatant was discarded, new digestion buffer was added for a 24-h digestion at 37 °C. The samples were then centrifuged at 2000g for 5 min and the pellet was stored for later re-extraction. The aDNA extraction was performed on the digested solution using Silica powder-based DNA extraction protocol. To each digested sample, 100 μl silica suspension and 10 × volume of binding buffer (4.88 M GuHCl and 29.3% 2-propanol; 1/1000 vol. of phenol red; 24.88 mM of NaCl; 87.6 mM of Na Acetate; final pH = 4) was added and adjusted to pH 4 with 37% HCl. The solution was incubated for 1 h at room temperature after which the samples were centrifuged for 2 min at 2000g and the supernatant was discarded. The silica was re-suspended in 1 ml of binding buffer, transferred on a new 2 ml tube and the aDNA was washed using ice-cold ethanol. Finally, the DNA was eluted in 80 μl Quiagen EB buffer.

NGS library preparation

The blunt-end DNA libraries were built from around 20 µl on DNA extracts using Illumina specific adapters and NEBNext DNA Sample Pre Master Mix Set 2 (E6070) kit according to manufacturer’s instruction with few modifications. For each step, negative library controls were included. 25 μl reactions mix were incubated at 12 °C for 20 min and 37 °C for 15 min for the end-repair step. A purification step using Qiagen MinElute spin columns was performed and DNA was eluted in 17 μl EB buffer. In the ligation step, Illumina specific adapters were prepared according to Meyer and Kircher⁹² and added to 15 μl of purified DNA. For ligation NEB Quick Ligation module (E6056L) was followed and the mix was incubated at 20 °C for 15 min. Then, the mixture was purified using Qiagen MinElute spin columns and DNA was eluted in 20 μl EB buffer. In the last step, adapter fill-in reaction was performed incubating at 65 °C for 20 min and 80 °C for 20 min 30 μl of reaction mix. The quantification of the library was conducted using SYBER green mix according to manufacturer’s instructions and using IS8 and IS7 primers. The amount of DNA library was used to assess the optimal number of PCR cycles required for DNA library indexing. The indexing was performed on 20 μl DNA library using 2X Kapa U (following the manufacture’s temperature instruction) and 1 μl of each primer (10 mM, inPE forward primer and indexed reverse primer). The indexed amplified DNA libraries were then purified using Qiagen MinElute Kit and eluted in 50 μl EB buffer. To quantify the DNA libraries an Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100 was used, and the libraries were sequenced on Illumina HiSeq 2500 using v3 chemistry and paired end (PE) 100 cycles.

Bioinformatics and DNA authentication

To remove the Illumina adapter sequences, we used AdapterRemoval 1.5.2⁹³. The adapter-free reads were then mapped against human reference genome built 37 using BWA 0.6.2⁹⁴ and only the aligned sequences with mapping quality at least 30 were sorted using samtools 0.1.18⁹⁵. PCR duplicate reads were removed by Picard MarkDuplicate http://broadinstitute.github.io/picard/. All mapping statistics for the analysed individuals are reported in Table 1.

The aDNA authentication was evaluated assessing the damage pattern of the DNA, estimating the contamination in X chromosome and in mtDNA. The damage is one of the most important characteristics of the aDNA and includes deamination at the 5′ end of the DNA leading to the typical C to T transition as well as G to A at the 3′ end. The damage evaluation was assessed using mapDamage 2.0⁹⁶.

The X chromosome contamination was evaluated by ANGSD⁹⁷ following the commands suggested by the authors. The mitochondrial contamination was evaluated with contamMix⁹⁸. ContamMix reports the contamination rate with a Bayesian estimate of the posterior probability of the contamination proportion. The method is based on consensus mitochondrial sequences analysis by comparing the mtDNA reads of ancient individuals to the reconstructed consensus and 311 present day whole mitochondrial genomes (the possible contaminants). The analysis was restricted only to individual A due to the low mtDNA coverage shown by individual B. To reconstruct the consensus sequence, the option –doFasta of ANGSD package⁹⁷ was used and each SNP was called only if it presents at least at 3× coverage. The mitochondrial genome mapping was performed against the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence (rCRS) using base and reads mapping quality > 30.

Sex determination

The sex determination was evaluated by calculating the R_Y parameter, applying the Skoglund et al.²⁶ python script. The R_Y parameter represents the fraction of the total number of reads aligned with the Y chromosome (nγ) divided the total number of reads mapped with both sex chromosome (nγ and nγ): R_Y = ny/(n_X + n_Y). A R_Y parameter value above 0.077 is consistent with male individuals while a value lower than 0.016 with female ones.

Uniparental genetic markers analysis

For the mtDNA analysis the mitochondrial consensus sequences have been used and haplogroup was assigned using the command line version of HaploGrep2^27,28.

Y-chromosome haplogroup placement was carried out first using PathPhynder⁹⁹, a software designed to place ancient and/or low-coverage individuals in a high-confidence phylogeny. While PathPhynder was able to fit individual A in the tree, the paucity of publicly available individuals from haplogroup A hindered a higher definition. We then proceeded to use ANGSD⁹⁷ to call genotypes at all phylogenetically informative sites listed in ISOGG. This curated database was split into transition and transversion variants to allow the usage of different filters, taking into consideration ancient DNA damage that manifests itself mainly through transitions²⁵. Only variants with over 95% frequency in the population of non-clonal reads in the loci were called. When calling transition variants, 7 bases were trimmed in each read end, following mapDamage 2.0⁹⁶. Although haplogroup A1b1 is the sister branch of BT—a macro-haplogroup that contains all other Y-chromosome haplogroups other than A00, A0 and A1a—less than 50 SNPs are listed in ISOGG 2020 either defining or downstream to it. Therefore, we further included all SNPs listed in previous studies^39,40 and from ISOGG raw data (https://ybrowse.org/gbrowse2/gff/) belonging to haplogroup A. Those variants were filtered to include exclusively single nucleotide point mutation biallelic variants located in the ~ 10 Mb short-read mappable region of the Y-chromosome¹⁰⁰. Recurrent mutations of lower phylogenetic confidence were removed by checking whether any identical SNP (genomic position and derived base) was found downstream of BT. The haplogroup placement was further confirmed by checking whether the individual carried the ancestral alleles for downstream haplogroups BT, CT, CF, DE, F, GHIJK, IJ, P1 and NO. All SNP calls are reported in Supplementary Table S9–S13. Code and data for the Y-chromosome analyses are available at github.com/tpinotti/Pompeya.

PCA and model-based clustering

To assess the genetic relationship between the Pompeian individual A and other ancient/modern populations, we merged the whole-genome shotgun data generated in this study with published datasets of modern and ancient populations by using Plink (www.cog-genomics.org/plink/1.9/)¹⁰¹. A subset panel of the Human Origins panel published by Lazaridis and colleagues⁵⁶ based on modern Western Eurasian populations (Albanians, Ashkenazi, Basques, Belarusians, British, Bulgarians, Croatians, Cypriots, Czechs, Estonians, Finns, the French, Greeks, Hungarians, Icelanders, Italians, Lithuanians, Maltese, Mordovians, Norwegians, Orcadians, Russians, Sardinians, Scottish, Spanish, Turks, Ukrainians), and selected 1030 published ancient individuals^{13,14,15,29,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66} was used (Supplementary Table S2). We performed a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using the EIGENSTRAT method¹⁰² included in the EIGENSOFT package⁶⁷, projecting the ancient individuals onto the components calculated for modern Western Eurasian populations using “lsqproject” and “shrinkmode” options of smartpca.

D- and f-statistics and population differentiation

To investigate patterns of shared ancestry in our dataset, D-statistics analyses were performed using the Admixtools 7.0 package⁷⁰. Only values of D-statistics for which |Z|> 3 were considered as statistically significant. The individuals were grouped in the same population according to the cultural and period information reported to the Supplementary Table S2 (column: Label for analyses).

qpAdm

We performed qpAdm on the pseudo-haploid genotype of the Pompeian individual using qpAdm v7.0⁷⁰ applying the option “allsnps: YES”. A set of 15 outgroups was used as "right populations": Mbuti, UstIshim, Caucasian hunter-gatherers (CHG), Eastern hunter-gatherers (EHG), Villabruna, Russia_MA1_HG, Natufian, Jordan_PPNB. We tested several models, and we only plotted the model with p > 0.05. Because we are modelling a single individual, we set a minimum threshold of 100,000 SNPs⁴⁵.

Using the same parameters we also performed the qpAdm analysis on already published Roman Imperial Age individuals²⁹ (Supplementary Table S8) and we only plotted the models with the higher p-value (p > 0.05) where the inferred admixture proportions were also inside the interval [0, 1] (Supplementary Fig. S5).

Pathogen screening

We used Kraken2⁷⁷, a k-mer-based competitive metagenomic classifier, to find matches on a database of all archaea, bacterial and viral genomes, as well as the human reference, with custom parameters (-confidence 0.05 -minimum-map-quality 30). 3.90% of reads were classified as Bacteria, and 14,096 of those were ranked at the Mycobacterium genus (Supplementary Table S7). However, only 403 reads could be uniquely assigned to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis species complex (Supplementary Table S7). We extracted those reads and mapped those to Mycobacterium tuberculosis human strain H37Rv using bowtie2¹⁰³ using custom parameters (-D 20 -R 3 -N 1 -L 20 -i S,1,0.50 -end-to-end¹⁰⁴) obtaining 161 and 45 unique reads, respectively (Supplementary Table S7). While these reads could stem from actual circulating Mycobacterium tuberculosis found in the individual, the low amount of data does not provide enough resolution to authenticate or to perform downstream analysis on it.

Data availability

The allignment bam file generated in this study has been deposited in the Zenodo database under the permanent DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6468368.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Parco Archeologico di Pompei for the authorization to publish this paper (prot. 2917 of 29.03.2021) in the journal "Scientific Reports" (prot. 6081 of 24.06.2021).

Digital radiograph images were made by X-Ray Sas radiology center (Aradeo, LE). We would like to thank James Fallon for his assistance with the English revision of the manuscript. Support for this project was also provided by PRIN MIUR (Italian Ministry for the Universities) 2009–11 (3 years) prot.2010EL8TXP National Scientific Coordinator and Principal Investigator OR: Biological and cultural heritage of the central-southern Italian population trough 30 thousand Years EPIC and by an in-kind contribution of the Laboratory of molecular Psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

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Author notes

1. These authors contributed equally: Olga Rickards and Fabio Macciardi.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Centre of Molecular Anthropology for Ancient DNA Studies, Department of Biology, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, 00133, Rome, Italy

   Gabriele Scorrano & Olga Rickards

2. Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

   Gabriele Scorrano & Thomaz Pinotti

3. Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Salento, 73100, Lecce, Italy

   Serena Viva & Pier Francesco Fabbri

4. Laboratório de Biodiversidade e Evolução Molecular (LBEM), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

   Thomaz Pinotti

5. Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92868, USA

   Fabio Macciardi

Authors

1. Gabriele Scorrano
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2. Serena Viva
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3. Thomaz Pinotti
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4. Pier Francesco Fabbri
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5. Olga Rickards
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6. Fabio Macciardi
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Contributions

O.R., P.F.F., F.M. supervised the study; G.S. performed laboratory work and analysed the genetic data; F.M. sequenced the libraries built; P.F.F. and S.V. provided the Pompeian individuals, all the relevant information about the archaeological context and performed the anthropological analysis; G.S. performed the genetic data interpretation; T.P. performed the Y-chromosome data analyses and interpretation; G.S., S.V. and F.M. wrote the manuscript with input from all co-authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Gabriele Scorrano, Pier Francesco Fabbri or Fabio Macciardi.

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Scorrano, G., Viva, S., Pinotti, T. et al. Bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic portrait of two Pompeians that died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Sci Rep 12, 6468 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10899-1

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• Received: 17 December 2021

• Accepted: 08 April 2022

• Published: 26 May 2022

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10899-1

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