Coronavirus, consolidation taking toll on energy jobs

By Jennifer Hiller

© Reuters/ANGUS MORDANT FILE PHOTO: 

A long exposure image shows the movement of a crude oil pump jack in the Permian Basin in Loving County

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Oil and gas companies worldwide are taking an axe to their employment rolls, shedding workers to survive what is expected to be a prolonged stretch of weak demand.Exxon Mobil Corp said it will cut its workforce by 15%, or about 14,000 people, along with oil majors Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc .

All told, more than 400,000 oil and gas sector jobs have been cut this year, according to Rystad Energy, with about half of those in the United States, where several big exploration companies and most large oil service companies are headquartered.

Coronavirus has devastated swathes of the global economy, with energy, travel and hospitality among the industries hit hardest. Energy companies were already struggling with weak returns, particularly those operating in U.S. shale regions, but have had to double down on cost cuts as investors pressure companies to improve margins.

© Reuters/Jim Tanner FILE PHOTO: A combination of file photos shows the logos of five of the largest publicly traded oil companies BP, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil Royal Dutch Shell, and Total

"The COVID-era reality across the oil industry is austerity on an epic scale. There is no escaping the fact that this means, among other things, job losses," said Pavel Molchanov, analyst at Raymond James. In addition to Exxon, Chevron Corp, Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd and Canada's Cenovus Energy Inc all announced plans in recent weeks to cut staff.

Global fuel demand slumped by more than a third in the spring. While consumption has recovered somewhat, it remains lower than a year ago with major economies resuming lockdowns to contain the pandemic.

Video: US would look different without fracking for natural gas, energy secretary says (Fox Business)  https://tinyurl.com/y4fv9bt5

The downturn has been particularly harsh in the United States, the world's largest crude oil producer. The nation has recorded the most deaths from coronavirus, and the damage from the pandemic has sent unemployment to about 8%.

U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said it is unlikely to return to the peak, near 13 million barrels per day, reached in 2019, largely through the use of fracking technology used by shale companies. The shale industry has been hit hard by the pandemic because it is easy for oil firms to cut staff and spending in the sector.

Fracking has become a hot-button issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. Democratic challenger Joe Biden wants to limit fracking on federal lands, while incumbent President Donald Trump has pushed for more drilling, and argues Biden's position would destroy jobs.Consolidation is helping drive job cuts. Chevron plans to eliminate roughly 25% of the staff acquired with Noble Energy, which it acquired this month. Shell said its oil output likely peaked last year, and it plans to cut roughly 10% of its workforce. Cenovus said it will cut 25% after it buys rival Husky Energy Inc .

In Australia, more than 2,000 oil industry jobs have been cut since March, including at Exxon and Chevron. Top independent gas producer Woodside said earlier this month that it would cut around 8% of its workforce.

Mohammad Barkindo, secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, recently expressed concern that the pace of oil demand is below expectations, potentially requiring major producers to maintain production cuts.

Not all companies are throttling back. PetroChina Co Ltd <601857.SS>, Asia's largest oil and gas producer, reported a 350% surge in profit from a year earlier.In an outlook released earlier this month, BP Plc laid out two scenarios that suggest world oil consumption, roughly 100 million barrels per day, peaked last year. BP Plc recently cut about 50% of its exploration team as it shifts operations towards renewable energy development. Currently, futures markets suggest crude prices may not advance beyond $40 a barrel for at least two more years due to weak demand, and that could limit hiring.

"The practical reality is when you have oil prices in the $30 to $40 range, I don't think many companies have the luxury to wait for a recovery," said Alex Pourbaix, chief executive at Cenovus.

(Reporting By Jennifer Hiller; Additional reporting by Ron Bousso in London, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, and Sonali Paul in Melbourne; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Federal government unveils rules for $750-million emissions reduction fund

OTTAWA — Oil and gas companies that use federal cash to help cut methane emissions from their operations won't have to repay every penny if they eliminate the methane emissions entirely.  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan unveiled rules for the $750-million emissions-reduction fund first announced by the federal government at the end of April.

"Any time we are able to help companies reduce emissions … that is a very good investment for Canada and is a very good investment for Canadians," said O'Regan.

"It's an incredibly effective way for us to reach our targets."

Methane has more than 80 times the global-warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and accounts for more than one-tenth of Canada's total emissions each year.

Almost half of them come from the oil and gas sector.

Canada has committed to cutting methane emissions between 40 and 45 per cent by 2025, but current regulations are only expected to cut 29 per cent by then.

The government has not estimated yet what emissions will be cut through this new program, but said up to half the cost of the loan can be forgiven if a project eliminates methane emissions.

If projects only cut some but not all emissions, the entire loan will have to be repaid.

Several environment groups were critical of the government for tentative agreements it reached with Alberta and Saskatchewan on methane emissions, which the groups argue won't be as strict as the regulations Canada laid out.

The equivalency agreements on methane emissions with Alberta and Saskatchewan will allow them to use their own regulations instead of having to follow Ottawa's.

But Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation and the Environmental Defense Fund, asked the government not to finalize those agreements until they can be improved to get Canada closer to its target.

Dale Marshall, national climate program manager at Environmental Defence, said the reason Ottawa can't say how many emissions this fund will cut is because it's not tying the cash to meeting the regulations.

"That's the difference with regulations," he said. "The level of reductions doesn't depend on industry coming forward with proposals. It ensures that every oil and gas facility is doing what is needed, especially given that these are very, very cost-effective."

Patrick McDonald, climate director at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the new program offers some flexibility which is good, but how much impact it will have will depend on what companies apply and get accepted.

He said most companies are already looking to move to cut methane emissions, with or without regulations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2020.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Judicial discretion for mandatory minimum sentences for murder would save $8.3M: PBO

Bill S-207, which would also apply to mandatory minimum sentences for other crimes, is being debated in the Senate.

OTTAWA — The parliamentary budget office says allowing judges to use their discretion on whether to apply a lesser sentence for murder could save the federal government $8.3 million per year

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Independent Sen. Kim Pate last month reintroduced legislation that would let judges deviate from mandatory minimum penalties, including for murder, which carries a sentence of life in prison.

Pate and advocates who support the proposed legislation say mandatory minimum penalties do not allow judges to consider extenuating circumstances such as abuse and systemic racism in the criminal justice system.

The parliamentary budget office says that based on a similar law in New Zealand, it expects about three per cent of murder convictions would result in lesser sentences due to exceptional circumstances.

HARPER CONSERVATIVE GOVT BROUGHT IN AMERICAN STYLE MINIMUM SENTENCING 2006-2016

The result would be fewer people in long-term custody at federal correctional institutions as well as in parole programs, which is where the cost savings would come from.

Pate welcomed the budget officer's findings, saying the money saved by her bill could go to supporting marginalized communities.

“Over 50 years of evidence, including findings of the Supreme Court of Canada, make clear that mandatory minimum penalties do not deter crime,” Pate said in a statement Thursday.

“Mandatory sentences fail to respond to the individual and community circumstances in which crime exists and create more harm," she said.

"In both human and fiscal terms, they are one of the most costly and least effective ways of trying to make our communities safer."

Bill S-207, which would also apply to mandatory minimum sentences for other crimes, is being debated in the Senate.

Asked about the issue at a House of Commons committee Thursday, Justice Minister David Lametti said the principle of cabinet confidence limited what he could say.

“I’m well aware of Sen. Pate’s bill, and I’ve discussed it with her,” Lametti said, adding the subject of mandatory minimums was “on my radar screen.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2020.

More pandemics coming if environmental issues not dealt with: report

An international group of scientists has concluded pandemic problems are just starting unless the world moves to deal with the issues creating them.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"The factors driving pandemics are human activities — unsustainable growth in livestock production, deforestation, the wildlife trade and global connectivity," says Peter Daszak, a British expert on disease ecology and head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

The panel, which has 137 member nations, commissioned a report into the environmental roots of pandemics and new diseases including AIDS, H1N1, SARS, Ebola and COVID-19. The authors of the peer-reviewed report drew on the findings of more than 700 journal articles -- about a third published in the last year.

"Pandemics are becoming more frequent, driven by a continued rise in the underlying emerging disease events that spark them," the report says.

"Pandemic risk could be significantly lowered by promoting responsible consumption and reducing unsustainable consumption."

The report estimates mammals and birds host about 1.7 million undiscovered viruses. Somewhere between 540,000 and 850,000 could infect humans.

More than five new viral diseases emerge every year, about three-quarters of which originate in animals.

Growing human populations that push into previously unpopulated lands, as well as the deforestation required to grow crops, are a big part of the problem. The panel found about a third of the new diseases result from land-use changes, agricultural expansion and urbanization.

The trade in wildlife, which has increased more than fivefold in value over the last 14 years, also increases close contact between humans and unfamiliar animals, the report says. So does climate change, which drives migration of both people and animals.

"We are part of the animal kingdom," said report co-author Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio, a Bolivian biologist.

"We can get viruses from animals. What happens is all these human activities are putting together humans more in close contact with animals that have these viruses. In the past, we would never get so close."

It's no longer good enough to wait for pandemics to emerge and rely on a medical response, the report concludes. It points to research that is starting to be able to predict where future pandemics will arise, which animals will host the virus and the environmental and economic changes that drive them.

"Pilot projects, often at large scale, have demonstrated that this knowledge can be used to effectively target viral discovery, surveillance and outbreak investigation," it says.

The report calls for reform in how land-use changes are funded to account for biological risks. Habitat conservation should be stepped up.

People in viral hotspots need education about potential risks. Animals most likely to host dangerous viruses should be blocked from the wildlife trade, which also needs higher safety and cleanliness standards.

Government policies should discourage consumption of products that drive deforestation and habitat loss.

"We have a choice now," Daszak said.

"We can either continue business as usual and have more and more pandemics that emerge quicker, spread more rapidly, kill more people and crash our economies -- or we can shift toward preventing pandemics."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2020.

-- Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

USA

Scaled-back Thanksgiving plans leave turkey farmers in limbo

For the turkey industry, this Thanksgiving is a guessing game.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Millions of Americans are expected to have scaled-down celebrations amid the pandemic, heeding official warnings against travel and large indoor gatherings. That leaves anxious turkey farmers and grocers scrambling to predict what people will want on their holiday tables.

Kroger — the nation’s largest grocery chain — said its research shows 43% of shoppers plan to celebrate Thanksgiving only with those in their immediate household. It has purchased more turkeys than usual — in all sizes — but it’s also predicting an increase in demand for alternatives, including ham, pork roast and seafood. Kroger also expects to see more demand for plant-based meats, like a vegan roast stuffed with mushrooms and squash.

Walmart says it will still carry plenty of whole turkeys, but it will also have 30% more turkey breasts in its stores to accommodate shoppers who don’t want to cook a whole bird.

It’s not always easy to pivot. Angela Wilson, the owner of Avedano’s Holly Park Market in San Francisco, ordered turkeys last year for this Thanksgiving. She can’t cancel the order, so they’re still coming in.

But Wilson said this Thanksgiving might be busier than in the past, since customers who usually go out of town will be staying home. She’s also stocking up on smaller birds like quail and game hen.

Some farmers are making tweaks based on what they think customers will be looking for. Dede Boies raises heritage breed turkeys at Root Down Farm in Pescadero, California. The turkeys she sells for Thanksgiving were born in May, so she has spent months thinking about how the coronavirus might impact the holidays.

Boies decided to harvest some turkeys early this year. It’s a gamble, because the birds gain a lot of fat and flavour in their final few weeks, but she figures customers will want smaller birds. She’s also offering more chickens and ducks.

“We’ve invested so much time and energy and love into these birds, and the whole point is that they go and they are celebrated with people for these great meals. We’re just really hoping that still happens,” Boies said.

Butterball — which typically sells 30% of America’s 40 million Thanksgiving turkeys — said it’s expecting more gatherings, but it’s not convinced people will want smaller turkeys. Its research shows that 75% of consumers plan to serve the same size turkey or a larger turkey than they did last year.

Butterball says about half its turkeys will be in the 10-16 lb. range and half will be in the 16-24 lb. range, the same as usual. Anyone looking for a specific size should plan to shop early, said Rebecca Welch, senior brand manager for seasonal at Butterball.

“Don’t be afraid to go big,” she said. “It’s just as easy to cook a large turkey as it is a smaller one, and it means more leftovers.”

Nancy Johnson Horn of Queens, New York, usually shares a big turkey with her in-laws, her parents and her own family of five. But Horn, who writes The Mama Maven blog, said that gathering won’t happen this year because her kids are attending school in-person and she is worried about spreading the virus.

“As much as it hurts me, I will have to cook myself this year,” she said. She’s not sure what will be on the menu. She’s only cooked a whole turkey once in her life and she’s never made mashed potatoes.

This Thanksgiving comes at an already tenuous time for the $4.3 billion U.S. turkey industry. Thanks to better technology for carving breast meat, per capita consumption of turkey nearly doubled over the 1980s, peaking at 14.4 pounds per person in 1996, according to Mark Jordan, executive director of LEAP Market Analytics in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

But interest in turkey has been steadily falling, thanks in part to price increases five years ago when flocks were hit by bird flu. Annual consumption is now around 12 pounds, Jordan said.

Turkey sales have even been falling at Thanksgiving as consumers explore alternatives, according to Nielsen data. Last November, Americans spent $643 million on turkey, down 3.5% from the previous year. They spent $1.9 billion on beef, which was up 4%. And they spent $12 million — or more than double the prior year — on alternatives like plant-based meat.

Jordan thinks the uncertainty about Thanksgiving demand will hurt groceries hardest. If they discount turkeys, they can sell them but it will hurt profits. If they keep prices high and consumers pass, they’ll be stuck with a lot of turkeys.

“I don’t see many ways that they win this holiday season,” Jordan said.

The uncertainty may well see a repeat at Christmas — both in the U.S. and beyond.

Christmas turkeys are a staple in Britain, where turkey farmers are also bracing for slimmed-down festivities after the government told people not to meet in groups of more than six.

Richard Calcott raises 2,000 Christmas turkeys each year at Calcott Turkeys in Tamworth, England. He bought his turkey chicks — known as poults — in February and March, and it was too late to switch to a smaller breed when pandemic restrictions took hold.

He has tweaked their diets to reduce the weight of each turkey by around 2.2 pounds by the time they’re ready for market. Still, Calcott said he continues to get some orders for larger birds.

“It’s been a very difficult year for a lot of people this year,” he said. “Christmas will be a good time to get families back together.”

___

AP Video Journalist Haven Daley contributed from San Francisco. AP Writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story.

Dee-Ann Durbin, The Associated Press

'They came with dogs:' Genomes show canines, humans share long history

EDMONTON — Somewhere near Lake Baikal on the Siberian steppes, archeologists were opening 7,000-year-old graves. 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The bodies had been carefully interred. One was buried with a long, carved spoon. Another had been honoured with a necklace of elk teeth.

"They look like people being buried — except they're dogs," said Robert Losey, a University of Alberta archeologist.

Those ancient pets are not only moving evidence of their owners' esteem, they're now part of research hinting at how far back dogs and humans go.

"We don't just have a human history that's independent of everything else on Earth," said Losey, one of 56 international authors of a paper published Thursday that links human and canine genetics.

"We've been successful by relying on and altering the histories of other species."

The first dog probably emerged from a type of wolf, but no one knows when, or where, or who domesticated it. It was a while ago. The oldest dog burial dates back about 14,000 years.

Losey and his many colleagues sequenced the genomes of 27 ancient dogs — including the one with the elk-tooth collar — with a maximum age of about 11,000 years. They compared them with genomes of 17 ancient humans who lived in roughly the same time and place as the dogs.

The dog genomes showed that 11 millennia ago, dogs had been domesticated long enough to produce five separate genetic lineages. That suggests the relationship between humans and dogs was old even then.

"They'd already been around for a long time, enough to differentiate groups by the end of the ice age," said Losey.

Scientists also found the movement of those different dog genomes tracked the movement of the human genomes.

"When people migrated, they didn't migrate alone," Losey said. "They came with dogs, often a genetically distinct form of dogs."

When the first farmers came to Europe from what is now eastern Turkey, they didn't adopt the dogs already living there. They brought their own. The genomes of both species track together nicely.

That didn't always happen. But Losey and his colleagues found that throughout most of prehistory, humans lighting out for new territory preferred companions they already knew.

The differences between the genetic strands weren't breeds. Losey said the variation between dogs then was much less than it is today and that most of them would have looked much alike.

"They would have been somewhat diverse," Losey said. "Most or all of them would physically mix right in with a modern dog — some all-black dogs, some all-white dogs, some with floppy ears. If my neighbour were walking one of these dogs from 10,000 years ago, you wouldn't blink an eye."

Losey, a dog lover himself, said studying the relationship between humans and dogs gives him a little insight into that long-ago pet owner who laid his friend to rest by the shores of Lake Baikal.

"There's such a huge public interest in dogs," he said.

"Every time we learn even a little bit more about their long history with people, we get additional insight into what it means to live with these animals."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2020.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

US wages and benefits grow at sluggish pace amid pandemic

WASHINGTON — Wages and benefits for U.S. workers grew slowly this summer as employers sought to hold the line on pay gains in the midst of the pandemic.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

U.S. workers’ total compensation rose 0.5% in the July-September quarter, the second straight quarter of slower growth in wages, the Labor Department said Friday. Growth was the same as in the April-June quarter. That’s down from 0.8% in the first three months of the year.

For the year ending in September, wages and benefits increased 2.4%, the slowest pace in three years. The data comes from the Labor Department's Employment Cost Index, which measures pay changes for workers that keep their jobs. The data isn't affected by the mass layoffs in the spring.

The figures suggest that businesses are holding the line on labour costs, even as they recall millions of the workers that were laid off in March and April when the coronavirus outbreak forced the closures of thousands of businesses nationwide. Still, the U.S. has regained barely more than half the 22 million jobs lost to the pandemic. The unemployment rate is a still-high 7.9%, though that is down from its 14.7% peak in April.

Pay and benefits fell in the third quarter for employees of colleges, universities and professional schools, for the first time since 2009, during the Great Recession. Compensation for those workers dropped 0.4%, compared with a gain of 0.6% in the second quarter.

Colleges and universities are struggling with declining enrollments amid the pandemic, with many classes conducted online.

Wages for state and local government employees increased just 0.1% in the third quarter, the slowest pace in seven years. State and local governments have also been forced to cut jobs as tax revenues fall. Most states are legally required to balance their budgets.

Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press

Belarus leader threatens to leave protesters 'without hands' as strike rumbles

KYIV (Reuters) - Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko threatened to leave protesters "without hands" on Friday, sharpening his rhetoric as hundreds marched through the streets and rallied outside universities to keep pressure on the veteran leader to resign.

© Reuters/BelTA FILE PHOTO: Belarusian President Lukashenko meets with Interior Minister Kubrakov in Minsk

Students, factory workers and pensioners answered a call by exiled opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to launch a nationwide strike this week - a fresh move to force Lukashenko to hold new elections after months of mass protests.

The ex-Soviet country sank into crisis after opponents accused Lukashenko of rigging the Aug. 9 presidential election to extend his 26-year rule. He denies vote fraud and has held on to power, buoyed by support from traditional ally Russia.

More than 16,000 people have been detained in a violent crackdown by security forces that has prompted Western countries to impose new sanctions on Minsk.

"If someone touches a serviceman...he must leave at least without hands," Lukashenko said in a televised meeting.

Protesters rallied outside several universities on Friday in solidarity with students who were expelled this week for joining the strike, footage circulating in local media showed.

Video: https://tinyurl.com/y4hx6d5r 

Thousands protest in Belarus as opposition calls for Lukashenko to resign (ABC News)

Several hundred people at the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics chanted "well done!" and applauded teachers who went on strike in solidarity with the expelled students, a video by TUT.BY showed.

Dozens, some holding posters saying "solidarity is our weapon", protested near the law faculty of the university, according to a picture published by Radio Svoboda.

More than 100 people protested in front of a school in Minsk, a day after police detained the father of three students who had joined the protests.

"Support students and teachers. Remind the regime: we will not let the future of our country be ruined," Tsikhanouskaya said in a statement.

Dozens of factory workers have been laid off as punishment for joining the strike, according to information given by the strike groups.

The authorities have also closed several cafes and restaurants for supporting the strike, TUT.BY reported.

That included the Brø bakery in Minsk, whose founder Ilya Prokhorov wrote on Facebook that the shop had been shut by the authorities on sanitary grounds.

Lukashenko partially closed the country's land borders, replaced his interior minister and named three security hawks to new roles on Thursday in an attempt to tighten his grip.

(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

It’s Hard to Enforce Pandemic Health Rules on Halloween. Just Look at What Happened in 1918

The COVID-19 pandemic has already played out like a horror movie script, and yet some Americans are still determined to celebrate Halloween on Oct. 31—trading their normal face masks for costume masks, and planning socially distant festivities.

TIME  OCT 30 2020© Influenza Encyclopedia/University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and Michigan Publis... Newspaper headlines about Halloween precautions, 1918

It will no doubt be an unusual holiday, but the cancellation of large costume parties and street celebrations also makes Halloween 2020 eerily similar to one earlier celebration in particular: Halloween 1918, which fell during the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century.

In the 1918 flu pandemic, as during this current pandemic, the virus hit different cities at different times. By Halloween, deaths in East Coast cities were on the decline, after a second wave that had been even deadlier and more contagious than the first wave the prior spring. Further west, the flu was raging.

Just as the state of the pandemic varied, so too did the precautions that cities took for Halloween. Newspaper articles in the digital archive of the Influenza Encyclopedia, produced by the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan, provide a glimpse at the range of Halloween safety protocols in major cities nationwide.

One thing they make clear: it’s already hard enough to enforce safety protocols on a day like Halloween, but that challenge gets even more intense during a pandemic.

To avoid another surge, some cities urged residents to stay home, banned Halloween parties and street “jollifications,” and urged youngsters to celebrate quietly. In Rochester, N.Y. the Safety Commissioner told police to keep the noise levels down, out of consideration for the high number of people sick with flu or pneumonia who need “rest and quiet” to get better.

In Maryland, concerned that warm weather would bring people out and too close together, the Baltimore Health Commissioner banned “frolics” such as street celebrations, arguing that “while the epidemic’s sweep was becoming milder, it was still dangerous to permit large assemblages of persons.” Residents were encouraged to wear masks but not to attend masked balls, the Halloween edition of the Baltimore American quipped, and they were advised to avoid activities like blowing horns, which are “particularly dangerous” in terms of spreading germs. The city’s health commissioner also had to clarify that “dancing, which was listed as objectionable from the start, is still regarded as nonessential,” according to the paper.

In Pittsburgh, “ticklers and brushes are particularly forbidden, and confetti throwing will not be allowed because in contact with the hands clothes and the persons of the people throwing enhances the danger of spreading influenza,” reported the Oct. 30 Pittsburgh Gazette Times.

Indoor Halloween parties were banned as well. “Halloween parties are taboo, as are all other indoor gatherings, as the danger of spreading the influenza is still great,” declared Denver Mayor W.F.R. Mills, according to the Denver Post.

In some Midwestern cities, Halloween went on as normal. In Missouri, Kansas City banned Halloween parties of more than 30 people, but in St. Louis, police reported that “the usual number of street lights [had been] extinguished” and “bread boxes overturned” during the night’s festivities. The day after Halloween, an Ohio State Journal headline read “Big Throngs Defy The Health Rules: Thousands of Columbus People Jollify on Halloween Despite Flu Bans.”

In Indianapolis, the top health official lifted the ban on public gatherings just for Halloween, allowing residents to “go ahead and have all the Halloween parties they wanted to,” as long as they stayed away from the streets in the downtown area, according to an article in the Halloween edition of the Indianapolis Star. But being allowed to celebrate didn’t necessarily translate to doing so: an Indianapolis News article did predict fewer, and less rowdy, festivities than usual due to the seriousness of both the virus and World War I, which was still going on.

On the other hand, even where cities tried to target large gatherings, local newspaper coverage of scattered incidents of individual mischief-making suggests that the tricks part of trick-or-treating was especially pronounced.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

In Dallas, “unusually rough and boisterous” celebrations lasted long after midnight. A piano was stolen and so was a horse; an 8-year-old jumped off a barn and miraculously managed only to sprain an ankle; a 2-year-old caught fire, and survived with only “slight” injuries.

In Birmingham, Ala., cabin fever was blamed for the city’s noisiest Halloween ever. “After almost a month of confinement and smarting under the bitterness of a closed city ordinance all of Birmingham ‘cracked under the strain Thursday night,'” according to the Nov. 1 Birmingham News. Revelers tipped over cars, stole porch swings, switched signs and uprooted gates in front of houses. The paper also speculated that excitement over World War I winding down may have also fueled celebrations: “Maybe the fact that Turkey had just surrendered, Austria was about to pull a collapse, and Germany was hanging groggily to the ropes, had something to do with the unusual display.”

It’s unclear what kind of effect these rowdy Halloweens had on case counts more than a century ago, especially given that it wasn’t the only event drawing people into crowds around that time: Election Day was just a week later, and people flocked to the streets again to celebrate the end of World War I just days after that.

Regardless of Halloween’s role, a long winter was ahead, and the flu did continue to spread at pandemic levels well into 1919, spiking in the following winter and in early 1920 as well. In the end, about 675,000 Americans and 50 million people died, and about 500 million people were infected globally.

Then, as now, even though they lacked much of today’s concrete knowledge about the nature of the virus, public health experts knew that social distancing and wearing masks slowed the spread of flu, and could do so on Halloween too. And so the same precautions they urged more than a century ago are getting new life, in hopes that Halloween won’t make this year even scarier than it already is.

Researchers in Toronto are in the early stages of developing what’s being called a "world-first" treatment for Parkinson’s disease.© Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Sunnybrook's Dr. Nir Lipsman is co-leading a study with Dr. Lorraine Kalia and Dr. Suneil Kalia of University Health Network on a new treatment for Parkinson's

Currently in its first phase of clinical trials, the ultimate goal of the new treatment would be to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s, prevent further decline in patients and reduce the amount of medications that people need to take for the illness, according to Dr. Nir Lipsman, the study’s co-principal investigator and a neurosurgeon at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

4:06     https://tinyurl.com/y3m2khnh
More Parkinson’s surgeries available, but still not enough

“That’s ultimately the goal — to change both the day-to-day activities of patients but also the course of their illness,” he said. “We’re still, again, (in) early days, but this is a critical first step.”

Parkinson's is a neurodegenerative disorder where patients experience tremors, muscle rigidity and have difficulty with balance, among other symptoms.

More than 100,000 people in Canada have been diagnosed, according to Parkinson Canada, and there is no cure.

Read more: Why are my hands shaking? What to know about tremors

The Toronto researchers, who are based at Sunnybrook as well as University Health Network, are using a focused ultrasound technology to deliver a treatment directly to the regions in the brain that are affected by Parkinson’s.



Gallery: These common diseases are detectable in DNA (Espresso)

https://tinyurl.com/y3m2khnh


This is done by non-invasively opening a passage in the blood-brain barrier — the physical obstacle in the body that prevents compounds, including potentially useful therapies, from gaining access to the brain, Lipsman said.

“What an ultrasound allows us to do is create a kind of temporary window in that blood-brain barrier to allow the delivery of therapies to the brain that ordinarily cannot get in,” he added.

“Now what we can do is open the blood-brain barrier entirely non-invasively with the patient in the MRI scanner, so they don’t have to have skin incision or holes in the skull.”

Researchers are looking at whether delivering an enzyme called Glucocerebrosidas to the brain will help prevent the build-up of a protein that is associated with Parkinson's called alpha-synuclein.

4:59
https://tinyurl.com/y3m2khnh
Larry Gifford on living with Parkinson’s


The goal for this phase of the trial is to have six people undergo three rounds of treatment, with follow up for at least six months. Three patients are already signed up.

Pat Wilson, 56, of Cookstown, Ont., is the first person to participate in the study. While she hasn't had improvement so far, she has had to adjust her medication because she's seen a change in how her body reacts to it.

Wilson was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2013 and her father also had the disease. She wanted to participate in the trial to try to help others.

Read more: When Life Gives You Parkinson’s podcast: More than care givers, we are partners

"It's important because we need better treatments, longer-lasting treatments, maybe. Anything to help people in the future who might get it."

Over time, as the Toronto researchers gain experience and conduct additional trials, Lipsman said they hope they can demonstrate that they’re moving the dial when it comes to preventing neurodegeneration from taking place.

“If we can do that, then we can prevent disability, we can improve quality of life and we can prolong life as well,” he said.