URBAN PIPELINE PROTEST NIMBY 

Residents, businesses oppose plans to build new gas pipeline on Queens Quay

Businesses oppose building pipeline on Queens Quay


Bryann Aguilar, CP24.com  Saturday, February 8, 2020

Residents along the waterfront are speaking out against proposed plans to construct a natural gas pipeline along Queens Quay.

Enbridge Gas is planning to replace a 4.5 kilometre-long natural gas pipeline that is currently underground along Lake Shore Boulevard between Cherry and Bathurst streets.

Queens Quay is one of the locations the company is looking into as a potential location of the replacement pipeline.

"(We) are very strongly opposed to this," said Carolyn Johnson of the York Quay Neighbourhood Association.

Johnson said they had sent dozens of emails to Enbridge and its consultants, saying the construction would disrupt lives and businesses in the corridor, which was recently beautified.

The newly revamped Queens Quay was opened in 2015 after years of construction and with a budget of $130 million.

"We're strongly opposed to a potential alignment of this new pipeline to tear up Queen's key for probably two summers," said Tim Kocur, the executive director of the Waterfront BIA. "This is Toronto's front porch to the world."

"We understand both the turmoil that a construction project like this can bring."

Kocur said the most logical place for the project would be along Lake Shore, and Enbridge should stop considering Queens Quay.

The company should take advantage of the existing construction along Lake Shore and align it with its pipeline replacement project, Kocur said.

Harbour Street is also being explored as a possible site for the pipeline.

Kocur said a possible construction would also not help the area's reputation, which has been touted by some as a place where there is construction on a regular basis.

"We would certainly like to avoid having construction here that would potentially have people think the waterfront isn't a place where you can go down to have dinner on the lake," Kocur said.

Enbridge is eyeing a possible construction start of spring 2021. The project is expected to last until the summer of 2022.

Councillor Joe Cressy, who represents the area, said in a statement that relocating the pipeline to a Queens Quay is not the solution nor should it even be considered.

"Enbridge is currently exploring other route options, and I'm optimistic that we will get this resolved," Cressy said in a statement.

CP24 has reached out to Enbridge for comment.

Tim Kocur, executive director of Waterfront BIA, says another construction along Queens Quay will disrupt lives and businesses.

Residents against building pipeline on Queens Quay


Carolyn Johnson of York Quay Neighbourhood Association says they strongly oppose plans to construct a gas pipeline on Queens Quay.

Indigenous rail blockades cause chaos for Ontario travellers, commuters
RCMP officers there have been arresting people for breaching a court injunction related to opposition to the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline

First Nations members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory block train tracks servicing Via Rail, as part of a protest against British Columbia's Coastal GasLink pipeline, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada February 8, 2020.Alex Filipe / Reuters


Jesse Snyder February 9, 2020

Ontario commuters scrambled to make last-minute changes to their travel plans on Sunday as protesters continued their blockade of two crucial VIA Rail routes, part of a demonstration against a natural gas pipeline being built more than 4,000 kilometres away.

VIA Rail said 18 of its trains were cancelled Sunday, affecting service between Toronto and Montreal, as well as Toronto and Ottawa in both directions. Canadian National Railway traffic was also blocked along the corridor east of Toronto.

The blockade in Tyendinaga Mohawk territory took over the tracks Thursday night in solidarity with demonstrators in northwest B.C., where Indigenous people and supporters are protesting the construction of a pipeline that crosses Wet’suwet’en territory. The Ontario protest, which began Thursday, is based where a road intersects with rail tracks about 20 kilometres east of Belleville and 60 kilometres west of Kingston.

RCMP officers there have been arresting people for breaching a court injunction related to opposition to the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline.

VIA on Sunday said service on the two critical routes would not continue “until the issue is resolved,” according to a public statement. It said ticket holders would be automatically reimbursed for cancelled trips.


CN says it has been granted an injunction order to remove protesters from the site near Belleville.

RELATED STORIES:

Protesters continue to block railway traffic near Belleville, Ont.

Commuter rail trips cancelled as protest blocks tracks near Belleville, Ont.

First Nations members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory block train tracks servicing Via Rail, as part of a protest against British Columbia’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada February 8, 2020. Alex Filipe / Reuters

Delayed commuters on Sunday complained of the cancellations, with some expressing frustrations over missed family events or cancelled trips to return home for the work week.

“I tried to go see my boyfriend who I haven’t seen in over a month,” said one Twitter user. “I heard stories while getting my refund at Union (Station) of a woman missing a wedding, a family missing a funeral …”

Ontario Provincial Police say they’re continuing to monitor the demonstration.

On Saturday, more protesters in Toronto disrupted Canadian Pacific Railway traffic downtown and momentarily blocked GO Transit trains on the Barrie line.

Photos from the protest site from Thursday night on social media showed a large dump truck equipped with a plough blocking tracks at a rail crossing. The distinctive red-backed flag of the Mohawk Warrior Society had been affixed to the top of a long, upright crossing barrier and a hand-painted sign read: “#RCMP get out.”

By Friday, the vehicles were not on the tracks but had been pulled back to the tracks’ edge. There was a report of a sofa being on the tracks Friday morning.

Facebook messages associated with the protest said the tracks will reopen when the RCMP leave Wet’suwet’en territory. 

First Nations members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory block train tracks servicing Via Rail, as part of a protest against British Columbia’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada February 8, 2020. Alex Filipe / Reuters

In a Friday report by the National Post, Chief Donald Maracle of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte said he has had no communication with the protesters. The protest is an action by individuals in the community and is not a band council action or stemming from a council decision, he said.

A second request for comment from Maracle was not answered on Sunday.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline feeds into a $36-billion liquefied natural gas project that was approved by Prime Minster Justin Trudeau at the end of 2018. TC Energy, the Calgary-based company building the pipeline, has signed benefit agreements with the roughly 20 First Nations who reside along the route.

The project has received broad consent from Indigenous communities, including elected Wet’suwet’en officials, but hereditary chiefs have strongly opposed its development.

With files from Adrian Humphreys, National Post, and The Canadian Press

Union worried AHS reviving plan to privatize laundry services

FLASHBACK RALPH KLEIN DID THIS IN THE NINETIES, AND SOLD OUR TAXPAYER FUNDED 

LAUNDRY SERVICES TO TORY BACKERS WHO OWNED K BRO LAUNDRY SERVICES, 

KLEIN SOLD THEM THE HOSPITALS LAUNDRY EQUIPMENT AS WELL AS SERVICES.

K BRO IS NOW NORTH AMERICAN WIDE, AS A PRIVATE LAUNDRY PROVIDER

PART OF THE ORACLE OF OMAHA'S BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY GROUP.

AND OF COURSE K BRO HAS NEVER DECREASED THEIR PRICES TO SERVICE

OUR HOSPITALS.

AND LAST TIME THE WORKERS FOUGHT BACK AND WE ALMOST HAD A GENERAL

STRIKE IN SUPPORT, UNTIL THE UNIONS SOLD THE WORKERS OUT FOR A DEAL

WITH KING RALPH.
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/01/laundry-workers-fight-privatization.html

EFF LABINE Updated: February 10, 2020


Alberta Health Services. IAN KUCERAK / POSTMEDIA

Alberta Health Services (AHS) is looking to save money by possibly outsourcing laundry services in communities outside of Edmonton and Calgary, but doing so could see hundreds of jobs cut.

In a letter sent out to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) on Monday, AHS gave the heads up about possibly contracting out laundry services. The notice states that the cost to offer that service could be up to $40 million. The potential impacts on staffing, if the plan moves forward, would be about 275 positions spread across 54 health-care sites.

On the list includes Whitecourt, Peace River, Athabasca, Barrhead, Cold Lake, Drayton Valley, Red Deer, Stettler, Canmore, Okotoks, Medicine Hat and Wainwright. Laundry service would stay the same in Edmonton and Calgary.

AUPE responded to the idea with a news release decrying the potential move as AHS pushing for privatization of hospital laundry.

Mauro Chies, vice president of Cancer Control Alberta and Clinical Support Services with AHS, said in an email outsourcing is being considered following the Health Ministry’s review of the provincial health authority.

“Outsourcing of all linen services would be an evolution of the existing linen services business model, as we currently outsource just more than 68 per cent of our linen services,” Chies said. “We understand and appreciate that for some this feels like uncertainty. We have assured our staff, their unions and our community partners that we will be prudent in our decision-making, keeping Albertans at the core of all our considerations. This is about Albertans, and the health system that cares for Albertans, every day.”

The AHS review, released on Feb. 3, looked at ways the health authority could save money. According to the review, laundry and linen services has a budget of roughly $60 million. Edmonton and Calgary are covered by six AHS-operated regional processing plants and 44 on-site facilities. The review notes equipment and plants at several AHS-run facilities are nearing end of life and would need more than $200 million to maintain operations.

This isn’t the first time AHS has looked at outsourcing laundry.

In 2015, plans to avoid multimillion-dollar upgrades to laundry facilities by outsourcing the service to a private company were undone by the NDP government.

AUPE vice-president Susan Slade said the plan is just another step towards privatization.

“It doesn’t really need to happen,” she said. “It is taking out those services that are provided right at the hospital. When you keep it in-house, you have that constant supply of laundry. You aren’t going to run out whereas that does happen in the larger centres sometimes, especially on a busy weekend.”

Slade added the money being spent is a public service as opposed to providing a profit to a shareholder. She said the union plans to take action against the plan but didn’t provide any details.

If AHS does move forward with this plan, a request for a proposal would go out in late May. A contract would then be awarded and an implementation plan developed in November. The estimated timeline once a vendor is picked would be between three to 18 months for laundry to be outsourced.

jlabine@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jefflabine

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Lupita Nyong'o Defended Horror Films After "Us" Was Snubbed By The Oscars

The star of Us also told BuzzFeed News there's a lot of work to do before actors of color are treated equally at awards shows.

David MackBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 10, 2020, at 12:11 p.m. ET

Universal Pictures

It's been six years since Lupita Nyong'o took home an Oscar for her performance in 12 Years A Slave, but many had tipped her to be among the nominees at Sunday night's Academy Awards.

But Nyong'o's versatile turn as a mother and her terrifying doppelgänger in the Jordan Peele film Us — which was so good that she even scared her costars on set — didn't make the final cut for the Best Actress category.

In an interview that aired Monday on BuzzFeed News morning show AM to DM, the actor said she wasn't aware of the perception that Academy voters are biased against horror films.

"I definitely heard a lot of that as I was promoting the film," she said. "People would say there's this bias against horror films — one that I was not aware of."



AM2DM by BuzzFeed News@AM2DM

Full Interview: @LupitaNyongo talks her upcoming "Americanah" adaptation, #BlackPanther 2, and more https://t.co/pV7Gg3Mpzs06:50 PM - 10 Feb 2020
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Peele's earlier film Get Out is among just six horror films that have ever been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars (the others being The Exorcist, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, and The Silence of the Lambs, which is the only horror movie to win the top prize). Some actors have won for their work in horror films, such as Kathy Bates' win in Misery in 1990 or Natalie Portman in 2011's Black Swan, but the horror bias remains real.

Nyong'o's Us performance was honored as the year's best by the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, sparking major Oscars buzz, but she ultimately did not secure a nomination.

When asked by BuzzFeed News what she would say to people who believe she was snubbed, she responded only, "Thank you."

However, she urged Oscars voters not to turn their noses up at horror films.

"At the end of the day, I think the value of award shows is to show innovation in cinema," said Nyong'o. "So having a discrimination against a genre feels so silly really."

"I feel like there should be room for any genre to be eligible for that kind of recognition," she said.

As for this year's overwhelmingly white slate of nominees in the acting categories, Nyong'o offered a blunt call for her fellow Academy members to do better.

"I think it's just proof positive that there's a lot of work to do for us to get to a place of equity," she said. "Really, that's it."


LUPITA NYONG'O
Lupita Nyong'o Says She Knew She Had To Work With Jordan Peele After Seeing "Get Out" 5 TimesJulia Reinstein · March 9, 2019
Lupita Nyong'o's Acting Terrified Her "Us" Costar Shahadi Wright JosephMichael Blackmon · March 21, 2019


David Mack is a deputy director of breaking news for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Contact David Mack at david.mack@buzzfeed.com.

Twitter Got A Big Tax Break To Stay In San Francisco. Now Jack Dorsey Says Its Future Is No Longer In The City.

As Twitter's home city nears a vote limiting new office space construction, the company may be forced to locate its workforce elsewhere.

Alex KantrowitzBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 7, 2020

David Becker / Getty Images Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

Nine years ago, San Francisco gave Twitter a major, controversial tax break to stay in the city, locating the social media company’s headquarters in the bleak mid-Market neighborhood. But today, after taking the money, Twitter is putting San Francisco on mute as it plans to expand outside of the city.

“Our concentration in San Francisco is not serving us any longer and we will strive to be a far more distributed workforce,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on an earnings call Thursday. “We have to build a company that’s not entirely dependent on San Francisco.”

“Sounds like something Jack would say,” San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a frequent critic of the tech industry and one of the leaders of the board’s progressive faction, told BuzzFeed News. “Apparently, the only thing serving Twitter anymore is Donald Trump.”

When they introduced the Twitter tax break, politicians hoped it would revitalize the neighborhood and attract jobs to a city whose unemployment rate was several multiples above where it is today, nearing 10% in 2010.

As the city’s politics lurch leftward — unlike when the tax passed, Peskin’s faction now controls of the Board of Supervisors and the city will vote on a proposition limiting new office space construction in March — Twitter, which took tens of millions in tax incentives throughout the decade, is planning to spread its workforce across the globe. In recent years, the centrist policies championed by former mayors like Ed Lee have given way to an anti-corporate wave, including the election of a democratic socialist to the board in 2019, mirroring a change in the national Democratic party.

After the tax break expired as planned last May, there was little appetite in San Francisco to renew it. San Francisco voters also approved a ballot measure in 2018 that required companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue to pay an additional tax to help people who are homeless. Dorsey opposed the measure, saying it treated companies like Dorsey’s company Square unfairly compared to ones like Salesforce, whose CEO Marc Benioff backed it, and Square later sued the city over its tax bill.

Critics of Twitter’s tax break saw Dorsey’s comments on Thursday as a validation of their skepticism. “I'm not surprised to hear that they're not really prioritizing their presence in San Francisco,” David Campos, a former San Francisco supervisor who voted against the tax break when he was on the board in 2011, told BuzzFeed News. “I'm not surprised that they essentially benefited from a very generous tax policy by city government, only to turn around and say San Francisco is not a priority for us. Unfortunately, it's what many of us suspected.”

Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, said Dorsey’s statement was somewhat concerning. “It reinforces the fact that the city's had a challenge in keeping large companies in the city as they grow,” he told BuzzFeed News. To Egan, it was not a complete surprise, given the high price of doing business in the Bay Area, which faces skyrocketing housing costs. “It's not unexpected that a major tech company would choose to have a distributed workforce or grow globally, particularly when the cost of living differences between San Francisco and many other places are continuing to widen.”

Despite Dorsey’s announcement, it’s unclear how fast Twitter’s employee base will shift from the city, and finding the type of workers it’s looking for in other places may be its biggest challenge: Once an economic cluster is established, it’s hard to move. “This issue has been brought up many times in the past. But it's a very niche labor market,” Enrico Moretti, a University of California, Berkeley, economics professor and the author of The New Geography of Jobs, told BuzzFeed News. “Ultimately, the type of occupations that lend themselves to remote work is not huge.”

Twitter doesn’t predict a mass exodus anytime soon. “San Francisco will be where the majority of our employees will be based for the foreseeable future,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News following Dorsey’s comments. “There's incredible talent around the world and we have to be able to work in a way that supports them as employees regardless of where they live, especially when they want to build careers in their own communities.”

Not all observers were opposed to the move. “There's always blowback,” said Anna Auerbach, cofounder and co-CEO of Werk, an analytics company that enables flexible work. The benefits, she said, will outweigh the costs. “It's going to help Twitter attract a really incredible talent pool, a really diverse talent pool, and my hunch is, they're going to see some really fundamental changes when it comes to productivity improvements and culture and retention.”

CORRECTION
February 7, 2020, at 11:50 a.m.


This story has been amended to reflect that Square, not Twitter, is treated differently than Salesforce under a new San Francisco tax.

1. BLACK HISTORY MONTH 
 
2. JPG

These Pictures Capture The Glory That Was The Harlem Renaissance

Throughout the 1920s and into the '30s, the Harlem neighborhood of New York City was a mecca of black community, music, fashion, and art that can best be described as a cultural renaissance.

Gabriel H. SanchezBuzzFeed News Photo Essay Editor

At the start of the 20th century, the Harlem neighborhood of New York City was home to a largely black middle-class community that thrived following a period known as the Great Migration, when many black families left the oppressive South for new beginnings.

In the years that followed marked the era of the Harlem Renaissance, which saw a flourishing of art, music, dance, poetry, entrepreneurship, and fashion that set the foundation for black culture in America today. Artists who called Harlem their home, such as Augusta Savage and Aaron Douglas, developed a new visual lexicon for black culture, while writers and poets such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston used language to help define the realities of the black American experience. At night, venues such as the Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom packed the dance floor with groundbreaking new musicians like Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, and Cab Calloway.

These pictures capture the sights and scenes of Harlem during this quintessential time of American history.

A police officer directs traffic in Harlem, 1925.A group of young girls play after school, 1925.Harlem schoolboys, circa 1930.

Underwood Archives / Getty Images

Lt. James Reese Europe and members of his 369th Infantry Regiment jazz band participate in a parade upon their return to the United States from Europe, 1919. The 369th was also known as the Harlem Hellfighters.

A parade organized by the United Negro Improvement Association, 1920.Marcus Garvey (second from right) sits in the back of a car in a parade through Harlem, circa 1920.
The newsrooms of the Amsterdam News in Harlem, 1938.
Louis Armstrong shakes hands with EJ Harris while receiving an award from the National Swing Club of America, alongside (from left) bandleader Joe Springer, pianist Duke Ellington, and WMCA radio's Lee Grant, circa 1935.A'Lelia Walker, daughter of entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker, supervises a facial in one of her mother's beauty parlors in Harlem, 1930.A man receives a manicure at a beauty parlor, circa 1930.
SEE MORE

Trans Starbucks Employees Say The Company Is Letting Them Down

Employees told BuzzFeed News they've encountered deadnaming, misgendering, outing, and trouble getting surgeries covered with their employee insurance.

Lauren Strapagiel BuzzFeed News Reporter

Lauren Strapagiel is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Toronto, Canada.
Posted on February 6, 2020,


youtube.com

This week, Starbucks UK released an ad showing a young trans man getting to use his chosen name while getting a coffee.

The ad, made in support of a UK trans youth organization, shows the heartbreak of being deadnamed over and over before finally being properly addressed at a Starbucks.

While many have praised the spot for what it represents, it's also drawn complaints from trans Starbucks employees who say the company's publicly declared values don't always align with how they're treated.

Former and current employees told BuzzFeed News they've experienced being outed or misgendered by other employees, been confronted by their deadnames in company software, and having trouble accessing gender-affirming medical treatment under Starbucks's employee insurance plans

The whole reason Tucker Jace Webb wanted to work as a Starbucks partner (which is what the company calls its employees) was its insurance plan has covered gender-affirming procedures since 2013. He started at a location in Denton, Texas, in January 2018 but said he quickly encountered problems.


Courtesy of Tucker Jace Webb
Tucker Jace Webb

First, despite employee software allowing him to enter a name, the new-hire login system greeted him with his deadname. He alerted corporate but said he was told nothing could be done unless he had a legal name change.

Later, four months into the job, he found out from a supervisor that he'd been outed to staff by a high-ranking employee.

The employee "thought that it was appropriate to tell of my shift supervisors about my trans identity," he told BuzzFeed News. "In my interview, I said that is information I don't want anyone else knowing."

He said he escalated the incident to the district manager, who got him a location transfer. Then, at the new location, it happened again. An employee was bantering with a coworker and used Webb's trans identity as an argument about respecting other people's identities, "completely outing me and then also using me as a political example."

Webb said he reported both instances to the corporate level, but never got a response. It wasn't until this week, when a tweet about his issues went viral, that corporate got in touch.



donate to trans woc@teejleaks

starbucks wouldn’t let me change my name on my login unless i legally changed it. they have also denied multiple trans employee’s request for gender confirming surgery. i have been outed by every manager about my trans identity without my consent. https://t.co/VawEUiWERJ04:05 PM - 03 Feb 2020
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He said the Starbucks spokesperson apologized for the company dropping the ball and pledged to investigate where things went wrong. Webb appreciated the effort, but, he said, "at the same time, this has been going on for so many months and no one said anything until I tweeted about it."

He said it seems like Starbucks has solid trans-friendly policies at the corporate level, but actually implementing them at a store level seems to be an issue.

"I feel like some type of training needs to be mandated," he said.

A Starbucks spokesperson declined to comment on the individual allegations in this story but said the company is reaching out to everyone tweeting complaints like Webb's in response to the UK commercial.

"We take great pride in providing a warm and welcoming environment for everyone, and intentional misgendering is not acceptable conduct at Starbucks," the spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "It is not align [sic] with our mission and values, nor with our employment policies regarding harassment and discrimination."

The spokesperson also noted that Starbucks has had Workplace Gender Transition Guidelines for more than a decade and that the company covers gender reassignment surgeries.

For Webb, that coverage never worked out. He ended up going back on his parents' health insurance and got the procedure done in December. He plans to return to Starbucks after his recovery

Jamison Schwartz started working at Starbucks in July 2018, not long after the company announced it was expanding what gender-affirming procedures would be covered.

"That was really cool. I was really excited," Schwartz told BuzzFeed News. He'd been hoping to get top surgery, so the new job was perfect.


Courtesy of Jamison Schwartz
Jamison Schwartz

He said his employees were all respectful, but problems arose when he tried to get his top surgery covered.

Despite working with a Starbucks advocate — a title given to employees assigned with helping workers handle their insurance — and following guidelines, Schwartz was denied coverage three times. The advocate really seemed to care and wanted to help, Schwartz said, but didn't know what to do after the final denial.

"It was a really frustrating time and I started to not enjoy going to work as much," he told BuzzFeed News. "It is a very new policy they’d just come out with in the past year or two, so I don't think they realized the high demand of their employees."

He said he thought the company is really trying to support trans employees, but it's still falling short. He ended up leaving Starbucks in July 2019.

For Elaine Cao, it took the threat of legal action to get her bottom surgery covered by her Starbucks insurance. She started at a Starbucks in St. Louis in September 2017 after hearing about the company's policies for trans employees.

Like Webb, she said she was also outed by a manager.

"I don’t think it was malicious. It was a matter of they didn’t have enough training to be like, don’t do this," she told BuzzFeed News. She said that if policies exist, it's not apparent if managers or fellow baristas ever read them.


Courtesy of Elaine Cao
Elaine Cao\
In another incident, a supervisor intentionally misgendered her, she said. She took a complaint up the chain to corporate and said the supervisor got a talking to.

"Then he gave me a very angry phone call [and said], 'I can’t believe you went to corporate about this,'" she said. "I would have wanted to never see that guy again. I feel like it was something they had a responsibility to follow up on more seriously."

The supervisor ended up quitting without other action being taken, according to Cao.

When it came time for surgery, Cao said, she was fortunate enough to be able to get a bank loan to pay for the procedure up front. When she tried to get reimbursed through her Starbucks insurance, she kept being denied on technicalities she said made no sense. For example, she said, they'd say she was missing documents she was never asked for.

"The insurance company just made it up and they were like, 'We can’t pay for it,'" she said. "I had to threaten the insurance company with lawsuits to get that through."

Again, she said she believes Starbucks thinks it's helping trans employees, but there's a lot to be desired.

"I legitimately think that the people who work in the corporate office in Seattle, they think that — but they aren’t doing enough to make sure that that is the case," she said.

"If they’re going to say they are providing these things, they need to provide them in a way that reasonably accessible."

---30---

A Russian Propagandist Ran An Ad In The Washington Post — And Then Ran Victory Laps In Russian Media

When Alexander Malkevich wanted to free two Russians being held in Libya, he turned to an unlikely place — the American media.

Dean Sterling JonesBuzzFeed Contributor
Posted on February 6, 2020, at 5:38 p.m. ET


Washington Post

The Washington Post may have violated US government sanctions when it ran an ad online from Russian propagandist Alexander Malkevich — and handed a propaganda coup to a man who appears to have been part of Russia’s interference with the 2018 midterm elections in the United States and has been pushing false information to sow political chaos across the globe.

Malkevich, the chair of the Foundation for National Values Protection (FNVP), a Moscow-based think tank, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that he paid for the ad posted on Jan. 30, an open letter addressed to Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj, calling on him to release two Russian nationals.

“President of the Foundation Alexander Malkevich demands from the head of the Libyan government […] free the employees of the Foundation Maxim Shugalei and Samer Hassan Ali Seifan, who were arrested by the Libyan militaries in Tripoli in May 2019,” read the letter, published last Thursday.

The United States currently forbids business transactions with Malkevich after he was sanctioned in 2018 for "attempted election interference" while working as the editor of the Russian propaganda site USA Really (he has since left the site).

Under Malkevich’s leadership, the site “engaged in efforts to post content focused on divisive political issues but is generally ridden with inaccuracies,” the US Treasury Department said in a December 2018 press release. “In June 2018, USA Really attempted to hold a political rally in the United States, though its efforts were unsuccessful.”

Articles published during Malkevich's tenure mirror the same kind of false, misleading, and purposefully offensive content peddled by the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin troll farm that interfered in the 2016 presidential election in the US. Headlines include the anti-Semitic “Star of David Spotted Amidst Migrant Caravan: Who’s Behind the Invasion?" and the anti-trans "New Shocking Facts About Michelle Obama's Gender."

"The advertiser did not align with our advertising standards, and the ad never should have run," a spokesperson for the Washington Post told BuzzFeed News. "We removed it quickly from our site, and the advertiser is in the process of being refunded."

The ad was published on the site’s branded content platform WP BrandStudio, which offers advertisers "the Washington Post's award-winning investigative lens and a deep understanding of our audience to create compelling multimedia stories — from concept to production," according to marketing materials.

BrandStudio clients include Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.

"The Washington Post Newsroom is not involved in the creation of this content,” reads a disclaimer on the site.

Malkevich told BuzzFeed News he hoped to “draw the attention of the international community” to Shugalei, a political strategist, and Seifan, an interpreter, both of whom work for the FNVP.

In July, Libyan authorities arrested the men for attempting to set up a meeting with Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the fugitive son of the toppled dictator, as part of an alleged Kremlin-backed plot to interfere in national elections last year. Libyan authorities claimed to have evidence linking them to the infamous Kremlin troll farm.

Malkevich denied wrongdoing and said the men were carrying out sociological research to later sell to “businessmen and for other people who are in need of them."

The publication of the ad garnered headlines in Russia Today, which is funded by the Russian government, and the Federal News Agency, the parent company of USA Really and a founding member of Patriot Media Group, created last October by Robert Mueller–indicted catering oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s cook.”

“The Washington Post will help free Russians from Libyan captivity,” read one headline on Nation-News.ru, another Patriot group member.

None of the Russian-language sites reported that Malkevich had paid for the letter, with some sites falsely claiming that the Post had endorsed Malkevich’s demands. One news outlet deceptively cropped a screenshot of the letter to remove a message informing readers that it was a paid ad.

In an interview last Friday on Ren TV, an independent Russian television network, Malkevich obfuscated his role in placing the ad, expressing delight that the “liberal” Post had “published material” critical of the “Tripolitan bandits” who, he claimed, “are finding it increasingly difficult to explain to the world community why they behave in this way.”

Malkevich described Libya’s treatment of Shugalei and Seifan as “a flagrant violation of human rights" and said he had sent a copy of his letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, asking him to intervene in their case.

It’s not the first time Shugalei has been linked to Russian interference efforts. In April, BBC Africa identified him as a member of a group of Russians masquerading as tourists and election observers in the lead-up to Madagascar’s 2018 presidential election.

According to the BBC, Shugalei worked for Omer Beriziky, one of 36 candidates vying for president.

"[Shugalei] said that he would help us and would provide us with technical support,” Beriziky's campaign manager Onja Rasamimanana told BBC Africa. “It's like they decided what we should do, and we had to just do it.”

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A Man Accidentally Killed His Neighbor With A Crossbow While Trying To Save Him From A Dog Attack

"The arrow struck one of the dogs, went through a door, and then struck the individual being mauled as he was attempting to barricade himself from the attack," the district attorney's office said

Julia ReinsteinBuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on February 6, 2020

Adams Police Department / Facebook

A Massachusetts man accidentally killed his neighbor with a crossbow while trying to save him from a dog attack on Wednesday, authorities said.

According to the Berkshire District Attorney's Office, police were called to an apartment in the town of Adams over reports of a mauling by two pit bulls

Police found the dogs "engaging in a volatile confrontation," and they then "turned the attack onto responding officers." The dogs, which were said to have a history of acting aggressively, were killed by the officers.

Inside the apartment, police found the body of an adult man, 27-year-old Joshua Jadusingh, who had been killed by a crossbow. A child, who was unharmed, was found in another room.

Authorities said they believe a neighbor heard the mauling in progress, called the police, and then entered the apartment and shot at the dogs with a crossbow.

"The arrow struck one of the dogs, went through a door, and then struck the individual being mauled as he was attempting to barricade himself from the attack," the district attorney's office said.


Jadusingh's death is being treated as an accident and the neighbor is cooperating with authorities, they added.

The neighbor has not been publicly identified.